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Article: Fossils widen range of biological burst. (Burgess shale fossils from time soon after Cambrian explosion more common than previously believed) (Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- June 11, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Science Service, Inc. 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. (Hide copyright information)
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Nicholas J. Butterfield's discovery started with a mistake. The paleontologist had planned on studying 1-billion-year-old rocks drilled recently from Canada's Northwest Territories. But when he sent away for the samples, Butterfield wrote down the wrong order number.
While analyzing the rocks under a high-powered microscope, Butterfield was surprised to find a tiny scale from a Wiwaxia, an odd creature from the Cambrian period (545 million to 510 million years ago) that he had previously studied.
"It happened utterly by chance, if only because I'm one of the few people in the world who would recognize a Wiwaxia sclerite when it floated by," says ...