Mount Burgess, , is a

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...

Yoho National Park Yoho National Park ( ) is a National Parks of Canada, national park of Canada. It is located within the Canadian Rockies, Rocky Mountains along the western slope of the Continental Divide of the Americas in southeastern British Columbia, bordered ...

and is part of the

Canadian Rockies The Canadian Rockies (french: Rocheuses canadiennes) or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part ...

. It is located in the southwest buttress of Burgess Pass in the

Emerald River The Emerald River is a short river in British Columbia. It is about long and drains the waters of Emerald Lake to the Kicking Horse River. The river exits the lake's south end and flows in a southern direction for about to its mouth, which is ...

and

Kicking Horse River The Kicking Horse River is in the Canadian Rockies of southeastern British Columbia, Canada. The river was named in 1858, when James Hector, a member of the Palliser Expedition, reported being kicked by his packhorse while exploring the river. Hec ...

Valleys.

History

It was named in 1886 by astronomer Otto Klotz after Alexander MacKinnon Burgess, the Deputy Minister of the Interior at the time when Klotz worked for a railway construction. In 1892,

James J. McArthur James Joseph McArthur (9 May 1856 – 14 April 1925) was a Canadian surveyor and mountaineer who was the first to climb several peaks in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Two mountains and a lake are named after him, and he gave names to various oth ...

was the first to ascend this mountain. He was completing a survey of the lands adjacent to the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

. In 1909, geologist

Charles D. Walcott Charles Doolittle Walcott (March 31, 1850February 9, 1927) was an American paleontologist, administrator of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927, and director of the United States Geological Survey.Wonderful Life (book) by Stephen Jay Go ...

discovered the

Burgess Shale The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest foss ...

deposit of

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s with fine details on Mount Burgess. The Burgess Shale is a

black shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especiall ...

fossil bed (

Lagerstätte A Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These for ...

) named after nearby Burgess Pass, in which are found new and unique species, many in fact constituting entire new phyla of life, and even today some of these unique species have proven impossible to classify. The fossils are especially valuable because they include appendages and soft parts that are rarely preserved. At 508 million years (

middle Cambrian Middle or The Middle may refer to: * Centre (geometry), the point equally distant from the outer limits. Places * Middle (sheading), a subdivision of the Isle of Man * Middle Bay (disambiguation) * Middle Brook (disambiguation) * Middle Creek (di ...

) old, it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints. The mountain has two summits. The lower north summit was named Walcott Peak in his honour. Between 1954 and 1971, Mount Burgess was featured on the back of the Canadian ten-dollar bill. In 1984,

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

declared the area a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Burgess Canadian Rockies Two-thousanders of British Columbia Mountains of Yoho National Park Kootenay Land District

History

See also

References

External links