The uses of diversity. (fossils of different phyla fossils from Burgess Shale) From: The Economist (US) | Date: May 25, 1991 | COPYRIGHT 1991 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

ARMED with microscoopes, miniature drills and an infinite capacity for taking pains, a few palaeontologists have redrawn their profession's picture of early life. For several decades they have been studying superbly preserved fossils from the rocks of the Burgess shale, found in the Canadian Rockies, which are among the earliest fossils of complicated organisms.

The creatures had previously been forced into convenient taxonomic pigeon-holes, whether they fitted or not. T...

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from HighBeam Research

	Showdown on the Burgess Shale: The challenge / the reply Natural History ; ... a key player in Burgess research, challenged ... 520-million-year-old Burgess Shale, found between two ... concerning these Cambrian fossils; he also set forth ... be drawn from the Burgess Shale. In my new book ... and finally offer different "lessons" on what the Burgess ...
	Mysteries of the Orient. (major Cambrian fossil discovery in Chengjiang, China) Discover ; ... set of soft-body fossils at a Cambrian-age ... well-preserved Cambrian fossils occurred 75 years earlier in the Burgess Shale of western Canada ... Lagerstatten, the Burgess Shale has the most venerable ... modern animals. But fossils from the Canadian ... by studying the ...
	The Burgess Shale arthropod Mollisonia (M. Sinica new species): New occurrence from the middle Cambrian Kaili fauna of southwest China Journal of Paleontology ; ... section, led to the discovery of more Burgess Shale taxa, including a sponge, Leptomitus; priapulids ... material), the most common component of the Burgess Shale animals (Whittington, 1985; Briggs et al., 1994). The occurrence of many Burgess Shale representatives in the Middle ...
	REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM: TESTING THE EVOLUTIONARY RELATIONSHIPS OF EDIACARAN AND PALEOZOIC PROBLEMATIC FOSSILS USING MOLECULAR DIVERGENCE DATES Journal of Paleontology ; ... suffer from a number of well-known limitations that involve differential rates of molecular evolution across taxa and genomes, and ... important is this: some hypotheses of what the Ediacaran fossils are lead to sets of deduced molecular dates that are both ... Only careful morphological and comparative analyses of ...
	Round up the usual suspects: common genera in the fossil record and the nature of wastebasket taxa Paleobiology ; ... Impacts of Wastebaskets on Databases, Diversity Metrics, and Analyses.-Unfortunately ... genera can affect the following: 1. Diversity indices: "trickle-up" effect, in which ... unevenness of occurrences and decrease diversity as measured by parameters such as Simpson ... by wastebaskets. 5. Use of generic ...
	New well-preserved scleritomes of Chancelloridae from the early Cambrian Yuanshan formation (Chengjiang, China) and the middle Cambrian wheeler shale (Utah, USA) and... Journal of Paleontology ; ... surface indicates that the fossils are secondarily flattened ... biomineralization very different from that of sponge spicules ... reported worldwide, with high diversity for example from the Georgina ... Cambrian age occur in the Burgess Shale (Walcott, 1920), the Wheeler ... with other "soft ...
	Using a theoretical ecospace to quantify the ecological diversity of Paleozoic and modern marine biotas Paleobiology ; ... of ecological diversity using techniques ... extraordinarily different scales or living in different focal habitats ... resolution and habitat diversity between these ... function very differently. Size should provide ... manner in which different organisms occupy ... ranks-kingdoms, ...
	Diversification of atypical Paleozoic echinoderms: a quantitative survey of patterns of stylophoran disparity, diversity, and geography Paleobiology ; ... disparity and diversity during the ... Cambrian diversity peak clearly ... achieving a diversity peak in the ... morphological diversity in the Silurian and to the diversity peak in the ... that their diversity clearly peaked ... dispersion and diversity (both taxonomic ... approach ...
	Wonderful strife: systematics, stem groups, and the phylogenetic signal of the Cambrian radiation Paleobiology ; ... students of the Cambrian fossils, others entirely ... should we classify fossils that appear to fit ... the meaning of the Burgess Shale. Classification of the Burgess Shale Animals Gould championed ... the significance of fossils in understanding ... who argued that fossils ...
	Archaeocyaths--A history of phylogenetic interpretation Journal of Paleontology ; ... reaching a peak diversity of about 170 genera ... on archaeocyathan diversity, the latter event ... modeling taxonomic diversity of early Phanerozoic ... INTERPRETATIONS-FROM ALGAE TO FORAMS Fossils that we now call ... Ethmophyllum, for these fossils, referring to them ... Archaeocyathus, and that ...

See all results.