Marble Canyon (Canadian Rockies)

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Marble Canyon surrounds Tokumm Creek just above its confluence with the Vermilion River, at the north end of Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia. South of the canyon on Highway 93 is Numa Falls on the Vermilion River. As described by Canadian Alpine Journal in 1913, "[Tokumm Creek] joins Vermilion River through a magnificent gorge, or box canyon, so narrow that at several places the fissure, for it seems little more than a crack in the rock strata, is bridged by great boulders that have become wedged across it. It was a feature well worth seeing."

Cambrian Lagerstatte

A major new find was announced in early 2014 of fossilized Cambrian soft-bodied organisms in or near Marble Canyon that rival or even surpass the nearby Burgess Shale fossil site in size and preservation. The report said that 22% of the observed species found in the initial excavation were new to science. Additionally, several species previously known only from Chinese Lagerstätten, created millions of years earlier, were also found at the site. The exact location of the site was kept confidential to avoid damage to the site.

Species discoveries

Based on Caron et al. (2014) unless otherwise noted. Fossils first described from Marble Canyon are written as bold.

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