Summits of an Ancient Seafloor
The Rocky Mountains of British Columbia in Canada are holding a geological sensation - the Burgess shale with its marine fauna. About 500 million years in the Cambrian era these skeleton-free invertebrate fossils drifted through an ancient ocean. They belong to the oldest macroscopic fossils on Earth. All of these mountain peaks consist of ocean-floor sediments of these times including their fossil remains. Often they were sloped during the uplift process as can be seen here. The low light after a thunderstorm moving by lights up every single sediment layer containing the first macroscopic animals that lived on Earth.
August 1998
Pentax K2, Sigma 70-300mm, f/8, 1/4sec, Kodak Ektachrome E6, ISO 100, polarization filter, tripod