Spring fieldwork at the Marjum Formation of Utah

We are back from another successful campaign of fieldwork in the Marjum Formation of Utah as part of our ongoing efforts to study the most diverse, abundant and well preserved Cambrian Burgess Shale-type deposits from the United States! In addition to our core team including Rudy Lerosey-Aubril and Javier Ortega-Hernández (MCZ/OEB, Harvard University), Bob Gaines (Pomona College, California), Jake Skabelund (Wellsville, Utah) and Rob Coleman (Round Lake Beach, Illinois), we were also joined by collagues both local and from afar, including Liz Kane (MCZ Faculty, based in Charleston, South Carolina), Marc Mapalo (OEB grad student), Chad Ostrander (University of Utah), Luke Parry (University of Oxford), Shanan Peters (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Marcus Donivan (Salt Lake City, Utah). This is our third exploration campaign under the permission of the Bureau of Land Management, as we continue producing spectacular material that will be stewarded in the Invertebrate Paleontology collection at the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Harvard University. Stay tuned for new and exciting discoveries from this site, including recent hits such as extraordinarily well preserved benthic pterobranchs, a solitary tunicate, comb jellies with nervous systems, and a diverse radiodont fauna among many others!

Fieldwork on the Marjum Formation is generously supported by the Putnam Expedition Grant and the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.