ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND Between the extraordinary biotas of the Early – Middle Cambrian (such as Burgess Shale, Chengjiang, Chapter 3) and the beautifully preserved arthropods of the late Silurian Bertie Waterlimes described in Chapter 5, the fossil record shows few major Lagerstätten. The Ordovician Period is particularly barren of exceptional biotas. However, one Ordovician horizon, Beecher’s Trilobite Bed, part of the Upper Ordovician Utica Basin shales of upper New York State (48), has long been famous for its trilobites with appendages exquisitely preserved in iron pyrite (FeS2). While there are many occurences of fossils preserved in pyrite in the fossil record, e.g. beautiful golden goniatite shells in Coal Measure marine bands of northern England, pyrite preservation of soft-parts anatomy is extremely rare. Another example of softpart preservation in pyrite is in the Devonian Hunsrück Slate of Germany (Bartels et al., 1998; Selden and Nudds, 2004, Chapter 4).