Qualla: Soom Shale https://qualla.com/soom-shale en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/k/6/m/3/soom-shale-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Soom Shale https://qualla.com/soom-shale Soom Shale: Introduction https://qualla.com/soom-shale/ Photo credit Super Dromaeosaurus, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most fossils preserve what was hard in life -- bones, shells, exoskeletons. The Soom Shale does the opposite. Embedded in this thin geological member of the Cederberg Formation, soft tissues that normally vanish within days of death have been preserved in exquisite detail for 440 million years, while the hard parts -- the very structures that usually survive -- are demineralized and faintly recorded as molds. It is fossilization in reverse, and it makes the Soom Shale one of the most remarkable fossil deposits on Earth.

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Image: Super Dromaeosaurus | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/6/m/3/soom-shale-wp/k6m3-soom-shale-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Soom Shale: Born from Catastrophe https://qualla.com/soom-shale/ Photo credit Super Dromaeosaurus, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Soom Shale was deposited in the immediate aftermath of the Hirnantian glaciation, the global ice age that is considered the most likely primary cause of the Late Ordovician mass extinction -- one of the five great die-offs in Earth's history. As glaciers retreated across what...

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Image: Super Dromaeosaurus | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/6/m/3/soom-shale-wp/k6m3-soom-shale-born-from-catastrophe.mp3 0:06 2 full Soom Shale: The Fossil Bestiary https://qualla.com/soom-shale/ Photo credit Super Dromaeosaurus, CC BY-SA 4.0. What the Soom Shale contains reads like a catalog of Ordovician marine life. Trilobites of the genus Mucronaspis appear alongside eurypterids -- the ancient sea scorpions that would later grow to terrifying sizes. Conodonts, the enigmatic eel-like animals whose tooth-like element...

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Image: Super Dromaeosaurus | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/6/m/3/soom-shale-wp/k6m3-soom-shale-the-fossil-bestiary.mp3 0:06 3 full Soom Shale: Preservation in Negative https://qualla.com/soom-shale/ Photo credit Super Dromaeosaurus, CC BY-SA 4.0. The quality of preservation in the Soom Shale is extraordinary not just for what it shows, but for how it inverts the normal fossil record. There is almost no taphonomic distortion: little evidence of transport by currents, no alignment of fossils by water flow, no signs that any...

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Image: Super Dromaeosaurus | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/6/m/3/soom-shale-wp/k6m3-soom-shale-preservation-in-negative.mp3 0:06 4 full Soom Shale: A Window in the Mountains https://qualla.com/soom-shale/ Photo credit Super Dromaeosaurus, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Soom Shale outcrops in the Cederberg mountains of the Western Cape, part of the Table Mountain Group whose sandstone peaks and wind-sculpted formations draw hikers and climbers from around the world. That these mountains contain a world-class Ordovician fossil deposit is one ...

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Image: Super Dromaeosaurus | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/6/m/3/soom-shale-wp/k6m3-soom-shale-a-window-in-the-mountains.mp3 0:06 5 full