Data on taxon preservation from three Burgess Shale-type deposits

The dataset represents the type of anatomical structures found in all fossil taxa from three Burgess Shale-type deposits: the Burgess Shale (Cambrian, Canada), the Chengjiang Biota (Cambrian, China) and the Fezouata Shale (Ordovician Morocco). These structures were divided into five categories: mineralized, sclerotized, and cuticularized parts, and soft tissues that are in direct contact with sea water and internal organs. These data were acquired during a 3-month period from scientific publications, books, and through examinations of museum collections. This dataset allows for the exploration of the difference in preservation patterns between three iconic sites and shows that the proportion of the five identified structures differs between them. These data can be reused for comparison when investigating the preservation potential of a newly discovered locality with soft fossil preservation and to help reconstruct paleo-biodiversity independently from preservation biases.