In Chapter 5 of Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell, Dr. Paul Chien details some of his personal experiences investigating the remarkable fauna of the Cambrian era, in particular some of the specimens recovered from the fossil sites in Chengjiang, China and the Burgess Shale in Canada.
Due to image resolution requirements for publication on Amazon’s latest Kindle platform, we were unable to include a number of images we had hoped to share in the book. We are pleased to provide several of these below as a supplement to the chapter on the Cambrian Explosion.
Dr. Chien’s visiting team and their hosts in front of Maotian Shan (Mt. of Heavenly Hat) in Chengjiang, China. Visiting team members included Dr. Chien and Prof. Valentine (front row), Prof. S. L. Yao (second from the left) and Prof. W. Y Liang (in red shirt).
Well preserved comb jelly, Maotianoascus, phylum Ctenophora (left). It looks similar to the current living species (right). This group of animals swims by beating numerous microscopic cilia on comb plates, rather than using muscle contraction as in common sea jellies.
Cinderella, another arthropod showing well developed compound eyes, antennae and digestive tract. The undigested food content in the gut of this and many other specimens was isolated and studied under a microscope.
A crab preserved in three dimensions.
A representative of another extinct group, Chancelloriids.
Looking up from Emerald Lake in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. The Burgess Shale site is located below the top of the peak.
Burgess Shale quarry located on Wapta Mountain, with some snow still accumulated in July.