Word.ws English Dictionary

Burgess Shale

Burgess Shale proper noun: a rock formation in the Canadian Rockies that contains very many fossils from the Cambrian period.

Proper noun

Burgess shale

  1. A rock formation in the Canadian Rockies that contains very many fossils from the Cambrian period.
    • At the time the Burgess Shale was laid down, life on land was pretty unexciting – there were a few primitive clubmosses and liverworts growing in wet areas near water, but little else. There would also have been a strand-line of washed-up plants and animals, edible detritus that was tantalisingly...2015, Dave Goulson, A Buzz in the Meadow: The Natural History of a French Farm, Picador, →ISBN, pages 24-25

Origin of Burgess Shale

Named by its discoverer in 1909, after the place where it was found. It was found in or near the Burgess Pass, next to or on Mount Burgess, Yoho National Park, in the Canadian Rockies, by Charles Doolittle Walcott. As for which person with surname Burgess the pass and the mountain were named for, and the etymology of the surname Burgess itself, see Mount Burgess § History and see Burgess.

Words that rhyme with Burgess Shale

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about Burgess Shale

What does Burgess Shale mean?
Burgess Shale means a rock formation in the Canadian Rockies that contains very many fossils from the Cambrian period.
What part of speech is Burgess Shale?
Burgess Shale is a proper noun.

Words near Burgess Shale in the dictionary

  1. Burges
  2. Burgeson
  3. Burgesons
  4. burgess
  5. Burgess Hill
  6. Burgess Shale
  7. burgess-ship
  8. burgessdom
  9. burgesses
  10. Burgessian
  11. burgessies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Burgess Shale (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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