Wheeler Shale
The Wheeler Shale (named by Charles Walcott) is a Cambrian (c. 507 Ma) fossil locality world-famous for prolific agnostid and Elrathia kingii trilobite remains (even though many areas are barren of fossils) and represents a Konzentrat-Lagerstätte. Varied soft bodied organisms are locally preserved, a fauna (including Naraoia, Wiwaxia and Hallucigenia) and preservation style (carbonaceous film) normally associated with the more famous Burgess Shale. As such, the Wheeler Shale also represents a Konservat-Lagerstätten.
| Wheeler Shale | |
|---|---|
| Stratigraphic range: Middle Cambrian ~ | |
Elrathia kingii, famed trilobite of the Wheeler Shale. | |
| Type | Geological formation |
| Thickness | 100–200 m (330–660 ft) |
| Lithology | |
| Primary | Calcareous shale |
| Other | Mudstone, shaley limestone and limestone |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 39.25°N 113.33°W |
| Region | House Range and Drum Mountains, Millard Co., west Utah |
| Country | United States |
| Type section | |
| Named for | House Amphitheater (Geographic feature and type locality) |
| Named by | Charles Doolittle Walcott |
| Part of a series on |
| The Cambrian explosion |
|---|
Together with the Marjum Formation and lower Weeks Formation, the Wheeler Shale forms 490 to 610 m (1,610 to 2,000 ft) of limestone and shale exposed in one of the thickest, most fossiliferous and best exposed sequences of Middle Cambrian rocks in North America.
At the type locality of Wheeler Amphitheater, House Range, Millard County, western Utah, the Wheeler Shale consists of a heterogeneous succession of highly calcareous shale, shaley limestone, mudstone and thin, flaggy limestone. The Wheeler Formation (although the Marjum & Weeks Formations are missing) extends into the Drum Mountains, northwest of the House Range where similar fossils and preservation are found.