aceans.
In 1879 ook a job as a field researced States GeologicalSurvey and served inction t een years o be its ed secretary of titution, ive obligations, inued to do fieldoe prolifically. “o Fortey. Not incidentally, or of tional Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, ional Aeronautics and Space Agency, or NASA, and tly be considered the space age.
But e but lucky find in Britistle toe summer of 1909. tomary version of toryis t alcott, accompanied by ain trail beneat called tones. Dismountingto assist t discovered t turned a slab of s contained fossilcrustaceans of an especially ancient and unusual type. Snoer comes earlyto t linger, but t year at t opportunityalcott returned to t. tracing te of t to near tain’s summit. t above sea level, crop, about ty block, containing an unrivaled array of fossils from soonafter t t , tology. tcrop becameknoime it provided “our sole vista upon tionof modern life in all its fullness,” as te Stephen Jay Gould recorded in his popular bookonderful Life .
Gould, ever scrupulous, discovered from reading alcott’s diaries t tory of to embroidered—alcott makes nomention of a slipping ting t it raordinary find.
It is almost impossible for us ed to a breezy feoappreciate e in time from us tburst o t at te of one year per second, it ake you about o reacime of C, and a little over to get back to the beginnings of human life.
But it ake you ty years to reac remely long time ago, and t place.
For one t attop of a mountain but at t of one. Specifically it tom of a steep cliff. t time teemed normally t norecord because t-bodied and decayed upon dying. But at Burgess tures beloombed in a mudslide, ures preserved in ail.
In annual summer trips from 1910 to 1925 (by t excavated tens of t cional Georgrap back toason for furtudy. In boty tion . Some ing of 140 species by one count. “ty in anatomical designs never again equaled, and notmatcoday by all tures in te.
Unfortunately, according to Goul