Fossil Find Resolves Ancient Extinction Mystery

[Smaug]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8678459.stm

[Auspex]

A Moroccan "Burgess Shale", shading into the Ordovician; fantastic!

[pleecan]

What an exciting find with soft tissue preservation... A New Moroccan Cambrian / Orodovician Lagerstatte.

Thanks for the article.

PL

[Rover]

I've always been fascinated with the Burgess organisms, and it's interesting to see that they managed to persist past the Cambrian. Hopefully we'll get more specific information on which Burgess organisms were found in Morocco.

[THobern]

Is there anything that country doesn't have? I just hope that it's not destroyed by local, commercial collectors. I'm interested, though, to see how their attempts to fake these fossils will go. This is actually a very good chance to watch a whole new branch of fossil fakery evolve. Their trilobite replicas evolved from poor carvings into passable fakes, so I wonder how long it will take them with these.

[Smaug]

There are some more photo's on the blog of Jerry A. Coyne: "Why evolution is True" you kan find them on http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/burgess-shale-fauna-lasted-a-lot-longer-than-anyone-thought/

[John]

Here is another article on the Ordovician soft-bodied stuff, this time from the New York times. Shows a couple different pictures than the BBC article and has a rather amusing comments section:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/18fossil.html

The original article is here, but you need to be a subscriber to Nature to get the full version, rather than just the abstract:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7295/full/nature09038.html

You can, however, view the gorgeous color images of the specimens by clicking the "Figures and Tables" link on the upper right of the page.

John

[John]

Is there anything that country doesn't have? I just hope that it's not destroyed by local, commercial collectors. I'm interested, though, to see how their attempts to fake these fossils will go. This is actually a very good chance to watch a whole new branch of fossil fakery evolve. Their trilobite replicas evolved from poor carvings into passable fakes, so I wonder how long it will take them with these.

Actually, it was discovered, by local commercial collectors who brought it to the attention of the senior author, Peter Van Roy. Peter has been working with both Moroccan commercial collectors and others dealers to document this fauna since at least 2005 when he was still a grad student. Peter has a very genial relationship with commercial collectors which has meant he has been able to obtain some of the very best material from these sites for study.

It's interesting, too, that there has been very little fakery of this stuff to date. So far I've only seen a couple particularly bad examples. In one, a xiphosuran had genal spines painted on that the actual animal doesn't have and there are a couple very, very large Furca (fist-sized no less) specimens out there that are mostly paint. Given the level of minute detail preserved in the real specimens, spotting fakes of this stuff isn't very hard. I assume that as more people become aware of the fauna you will see more fakes, but that's why it is always important to know what you are getting, whether you are buying fossils, cars or magic beans.

By the way, the bright colors are very real. The colors are derived from the breakdown of iron and typically precipitate as bright reds, yellows and even pinks. The coatings are VERY soft so mechanical prep and even chemical preservatives can easily destroy them. Fortunately, preservatives don't seem to hurt the Furcas so the occasional ones I've picked up where the Moroccans had sprayed them with what is probably varnish seem to be fine.

John