|Part of a series on| |The Cambrian explosion| The Maotianshan
Shales are a series of lower Cambrian deposits in the
Chiungchussu formation, famous for their Konservat Lagerstätten,
or high number of fossils preserved in place. The Maotianshan
shales form one of some forty Cambrian fossil locations
worldwide exhibiting exquisite preservation of rarely preserved,
non-mineralized soft tissue, comparable to the fossils of the
Burgess Shale. They take their name from Maotianshan Hill
(Chinese: 帽天山; pinyin: Màotiānshān) in Chengjiang County, Yunnan
Province, China. The most famous assemblage of organisms are
referred to as the Chengjiang biota for the multiple scattered
fossil sites in Chengjiang. The age of the Chengjiang
Lagerstätte is locally termed Qiongzhusian, a stage indisputably
correlated to the late Atdabanian Stage in Siberian sequences of
the middle of the Lower Cambrian. It dates to between 525 and
520 million years ago - a period situated in the middle of the
early Cambrian epoch and at least some 10