June 19, 2017
Precambrian rumblings of the Cambrian Explosion
The Cambrian Explosion, when the ancestors of most of today’s animal groups began appearing in the fossil record about 542 million years ago, was …
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Cambrian
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8 articles · Page 1 of 1
March 6, 2015
Did a geographic shift trigger the Cambrian Explosion?
Roughly 530 million years ago, Earth’s living cast of characters ballooned as a surge of evolutionary development led to the sudden appearance of …
November 4, 2014
Oldest-known skeletal animals found
The Ediacaran Period, which lasted from 635 million to 541 million years ago, is famous for the evolution of soft-bodied organisms that pre-dated …
June 23, 2014
Did tidal zone trilobites lead the way onto land?
During the Cambrian, when trilobites thrived in Earth’s early oceans, the continents were devoid of animal life. “The Cambrian explosion was an …
December 3, 2012
Getting there and getting around the Burgess Shale
Traveling to the Burgess Shale requires a plane ticket, a guide, and the legs and lungs to hike high into the Canadian Rockies. Fly into Calgary, …
December 3, 2012
The Burgess Shale bestseller
The Burgess Shale owes much of its fame to a book called “Wonderful Life” by the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Published in …
December 3, 2012
Travels in Geology: Famous fossils and spectacular scenery at British Columbia's Burgess Shale
Of all the famous fossil localities in the world — Mongolia’s Flaming Cliffs, Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge, Wyoming’s Green River, Germany’s Solnhöfn …
January 5, 2012
Re-examining the Burgess Shale
About 505 million years ago, the continent that would become North America straddled the equator. With no terrestrial plants or animals, the land …