Cambrian

Cambrian period 543-490 million years Introduction The Cambrian Period marks the beginning of the Paleozoic Era. This period gets its name from a place in Wales where the first examples of this type of ancient life was found. The period lasted for nearly 53 million years, from about 543 million years ago until 490 million years ago. The Cambrian Period marks an important point in the history of life on earth; it is the time when most of the major groups

Most significant about the Cambrian Period in terms of biological diversity is the staggering variety of complex life forms that exploded into being. Before the Cambrian Explosion, life consisted of only simple single-celled organisms, such as sessile sponges and slow-moving cnidarians. Then, seemingly all at once, many different biologically complex animal forms appeared. These animals, with complex body plans and behaviors, became the basis for all major groups of animals alive today. These five

fossil record known as ‘The Cambrian Explosion’ presents a challenge – even to those with limited understanding of evolution. With the acknowledgement of this ‘explosion’ comes the issue of how it occurred. The problem arises because this sudden burst of change is inconsistent with the typical thought of evolution resulting from gradual change over time – otherwise known as uniformitarian theory (Erwin, 2011). This inconsistency begs the question: What does the Cambrian explosion tell us about evolution

B.ED. SCIENCE WITH SPECIALISATION IN BIOLOGY   Table of Contents The Burgess Shale Fauna 3 Introduction 3 History of Discovery 3 Preservation Bias 4 Major Fossils 4 Concluding remarks: 7 References: 8 The Burgess Shale Fauna Introduction The Burgess Shale Fauna is a fauna that was constructed based on a group of fossils that were initially found, in the Burgess Shale area in the Canadian Rockies (Gould, 1989). They are a very important group of fossils as “modern multicellular

taken millions of years to take its present form. In this paper, we examining the geological history of the valley and its alluvia fan formation. Precambrian and early Phanerozoic Age I. Pre-Cambrian Age In Pre-Cambrian time, Death Valley landscape was much different than what is today. The Pre-Cambrian eon is

in 1909. Walcott spent 18 years collecting and classifying the fossils located at this site. The Shale was formed about 530 million years ago, in the Cambrian Period. Most Cambrian rocks contain fossils of trilobite shells, cap-shaped or flattened shells, and brachiopods (Whittington, 1985). When Walcott went looking for North American Cambrian fossils in August of 1909, he ended up in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. He and his wife found a loose block in the ridge they were searching near, split

(Clarkson, 1998). Discovered by Charles Walcott in 1909, The Burgess Shale is an example of conservation Lagerstätte (Briggs, 2014). Dating back to 505 million years ago, it provides fossils of marine organisms dating back to the middle Cambrian period, not long after the Cambrian explosion, a period of time when organisms

notorious Smithsonian Secretary (Adler 2013). According to Haug, Caron, and Haug in their research article ‘Demecology in the Cambrian: Synchronized Molting in Arthropods from the Burgess Shale’ the Burgess is “arguably the best-known Konservat-Lagerstätte”. While the Burgess Shale is primarily known for the intricate preservation of soft-bodied creatures dating from the early Cambrian Period (Haug, Caron, Haug 2013); furthermore, what seems to make this specific site so special is the fact that not only

Around 530 million years ago, the Cambrian explosion made a significantly fast appearance of main groups of complex organism. This was confirmed by the fossil record. Along the support by an apparent diversification of various living things, including phytoplankton, calcimicrobes and also animals. 580 million years before this, most life forms were basic, made out of individual cells occasionally sorted out into colonies. The Cambrian explosion can be said to happen in waves. The initial, a co-evolutionary

evolution ever known was the Cambrian Explosion. For most of the nearly 4 billion years that life has existed on Earth, evolution produced little beyond bacteria, plankton, and multi-celled algae. Then, about between 570 and 530 million years ago, another burst of diversification occurred. This stunning period is termed the "Cambrian explosion," taking the name of the geological age in which the earlier part occurred. A recent study revealed that life evolved during the Cambrian Period at a rate about