Charles Doolittle Walcott

Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850–1927) was an American paleontologist and geologist who discovered the Burgess Shale fossils in 1909 and led the Smithsonian Institution.

Burgess Shale: A fossil deposit in British Columbia preserving an exceptionally diverse marine ecosystem from the Cambrian Period. Walcott discovered its fossils in 1909 and spent years collecting and describing them.
Mount Burgess: A mountain in British Columbia’s Yoho National Park, near the fossil-bearing Burgess Shale deposits. Walcott found the fossil locality on its slopes during a field trip in 1909.
Cambrian: The first period of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from about 539 to 485 million years ago. The Burgess Shale animals Walcott collected lived during this period.
Wonderful Life: A 1989 book by Stephen Jay Gould about the Burgess Shale fossils and the history of evolutionary interpretation. It made Walcott’s collections central to a broad argument about contingency in evolution.
G. F. Matthew: A Canadian geologist and paleontologist who studied Cambrian fossils from New Brunswick. His earlier interpretations of Cambrian fossils formed part of the scientific context for Walcott’s work.
Walcott Quarry: A major Burgess Shale fossil site excavated by Charles Doolittle Walcott in British Columbia. This quarry supplied much of the collection on which Walcott’s descriptions were based.
Cambrian explosion: A rapid diversification of animal life recorded in fossils from the early Cambrian Period. Walcott’s fossils became central evidence in debates about early animal diversification.
Burgess Shale fauna: The diverse community of Cambrian marine organisms preserved in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Walcott named and classified many of its animals, though later researchers revised those classifications.
Harry B. Whittington: A British paleontologist who helped revise the classification of Burgess Shale animals in the twentieth century. His reexamination overturned several of Walcott’s interpretations of Burgess Shale fossils.
Phyllopod bed: A fossil-rich Burgess Shale layer that preserves a wide range of Cambrian soft-bodied animals. Walcott’s principal quarry exposed this bed and yielded many of his most famous specimens.

Linked from 9 pages