Walcott, led by scientific opinion at the time, attempted to categorise all fossils into living taxa, and as a result, the fossils were regarded as little more than curiosities at the time. Describing the fossils was a vast task, pursued by Walcott until his death in 1927. At that point, aged 74, he had amassed over 65,000 specimens. The significance of soft-bodied preservation, and the range of organisms he recognised as new to science, led him to return to the quarry almost every year until 1924. He returned in 1910 with his sons, daughter, and wife, establishing a quarry on the flanks of Fossil Ridge. The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott on 30 August 1909, towards the end of the season's fieldwork. Another outcrop is in Kootenay National Park 42 km to the south. The rock unit is a black shale and crops out at a number of localities near the town of Field in Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse Pass. At 508 million years old ( middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils.

The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. Map highlighting Yoho National Park in red Yoho National Park and Kootenay National Park Ottoia, a soft-bodied worm, abundant in the Burgess Shale.

Gould burgess shale