Tulip Beds

The Tulip Beds (Formally known as the "S7 locality") is a fossil locality within the larger Burgess Shale that is located in Canada's Yoho National Park. It is a smaller member of the larger Campsite Cliff Shale Member, which exists above the Yoho River Limestone Member, on top of Mount Stephen. The locality is dated to the Miaolingian epoch of the Cambrian period, around 508 million years old. The beds represent one of the more recently discovered localities from the Burgess Shale, with it being first uncovered in 1983. Fossils from the Tulip Beds are found within multiple separate outcrops: the "Above Campsite quarry" and the "Talus Site". The Tulip Beds have yielded plentiful fossils, with up to 2,553 fossil specimens have been collected from the two outcrops since the localities discovery. The majority of the fossils (up to 70%) are known from the Above Campsite outcrop, with the majority of the collecting occurring between 1983-2010. The locality gained its name due to the copious amount of fossils from the area belonging to Siphusauctum gregarium, a species of stem-group ctenophore colloquially known as the "Tulip Animal". This species is one of the most abundant organisms from the Tulip Beds, with at least 1,133 specimens known from the locality. Due to its stratigraphic location at the base of the Campsite Cliff Shale Member, the Tulip Beds represent one of the oldest localities within the Burgess Shale. Like the majority of the other localities of the Burgess Shale, the ecosystem of the Tulip Beds sat at the base of a large submarine canyon known as the Cathedral escarpment. However, the ecosystem of the beds were more distal to the base of the escarpment compared to the other localites. The ecosystem would've sat under 100 to 300 meters (330 to 1000 feet) of water, either at the margin, or in the Mesopelagic zone. The fauna of the Tulip Beds are dominated by sessile taxa, in terms of overall abundance, with mobile taxa having a slightly greater amount of diversity. The fauna of the Tulip Beds is made up of both taxa found in other localites of the Burgess Shale, and other taxa known only from this locality.