The Burgess shale is an incredibly fossil-rich area in the Canadian Rocky Mountains (in British Columbia). This Lagerstatten (a geological fossil deposit rich with varied, well-preserved fossils) is replete with fossils from the Cambrian Period, roughly 500 million years old. The Burgess shale was discovered in 1909 by Charles Doolittle Wolcott, who was the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. at the time. Fossils from this area include early representatives of most modern groups, including plants, worms, sponges, shrimp-like crustaceans, and jellyfish.

The Burgess Shale is a black shale fossil bed (Lagerstätte) named after Burgess Pass, close to where it was found, high up in the Canadian Rockies in Yoho National Park near the town of Field, British Columbia. Fossils were first found in the Burgess Shale in 1909 by Charles Doolittle Walcott, who returned in the following years to collect additional specimens. Walcott recognized the arthropod fossils were new and unique species, but careful reexaminations showed that many in fact constituted entire new phyla of life, and even today some have proven impossible to classify.