The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott in 1909, towards the end of the season's fieldwork. He returned in 1910 with his sons, and established a quarry on the flanks of Fossil Ridge. The fact that fossils were of soft-bodied forms, and the range of organisms new to science, led him to return to the quarry almost every year until 1924. At this point, aged 74, he had amassed over 65,000 specimens.