The Cambrian Period

Download or read book The Cambrian Period written by Charles River and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-16 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading The early history of Earth covers such vast stretches of time that years, centuries, and even millennia become virtually meaningless. Instead, paleontologists and scientists who study geochronology divide time into periods and eras. The current view of science is that Earth is around 4.6 billion years old, and the first 4 billion years of its development are known as the Precambrian period. For the first billion years or so, there was no life in Earth. Then the first single-celled life-forms, early bacteria and algae, began to emerge. It's unclear where they came from or even if they originated on this planet at all, but this gradual development continued until around four billion years ago when suddenly (in geological terms) more complex forms of life began to emerge. Scientists call this time of an explosion of new forms of life the Paleozoic Era, and it stretched from around 541-250 million years ago (Mya). In the oceans and then on land, new creatures and plants began to appear in bewildering variety, and by the end of this period, life on Earth had diversified into a myriad of complex forms that filled virtually every habitat and niche available in the seas and on the planet's only continent, Pangea. Despite all of the scientific advances made in the past few centuries, including an enhanced understanding of Earth's geological past, very little is known about the planet's early history. It is generally accepted that the planet formed somewhere in the region of 4.5 billion years ago, and at some point, the first life appeared in the form of tiny, single-celled creatures, but scientists are unsure of what this life looked like. One of the problems for those seeking to trace the history of life on Earth is that modern scholars are almost entirely dependent on fossil records, but the earliest types of life left few fossils. The best fossils are formed from the bones and hard body parts of dead creatures, but the earliest types of life were so small that they had no bones or cartilage and thus left no fossils. Thus, even though the Precambrian Period (4,600-541 millions of years ago (Mya)) covers over 80% of the entire history of the planet, scientists have very little idea of what forms of life existed then. Then, as Earth entered the Cambrian Period, there was a relatively sudden increase in life form diversity throughout the oceans. Completely new forms of life, more complex and more diverse than anything that had been seen before, began to spread. This acceleration in the evolution of new forms of life was so dramatic that this has come to be known as the "Cambrian explosion." Although new species in the Cambrian explosion developed almost entirely in the oceans, the land was not entirely devoid of life. Though there were no plants or animals, mats of cyanobacteria and other types of microbes covered large terrestrial areas. Scientists have discovered the tracks of a creature that were left in mud that existed 551 Mya, and those tracks were left by leg-like appendages. Was this a fish-like creature that temporarily invaded the land, or was it something completely different than anything that exists today? There is no general consensus, but the Cambrian Period left a rich fossil record that provides a clear idea of the development of life during this time. At the same time, new discoveries are continually being made, and the more scientists discover about this mysterious period, the more their understanding of ancient Earth changes. The Cambrian Period: The History and Legacy of the Start of Complex Life on Earth looks at the development of the era, the extinction event that preceded it, and how life began to evolve during it. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Cambrian Period like never before.

Download or read book Early Life written by Thom Holmes and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the Cambrian era in Earth's history, when the first forms of life appeared and began to flourish and evolve.

Download or read book CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION written by D Erwin and published by Bedford. This book was released on 2013-01-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambrian Period records one of the most extraordinary transitions in the history of life. Although animals may have first appeared nearly 700 million years ago, with the earliest sponges, their initial diversifications appear to have been modest until a richly diverse fossil fauna appeared abruptly about 170 million years later. In The Cambrian Explosion, Erwin and Valentine synthesize research from many fields to explain why there was such remarkable novelty of animal forms.

Download or read book Cambrian Ocean World written by John Foster and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-06 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, aimed at the general reader, presents life and times of the amazing animals that inhabited Earth more than 500 million years ago. The Cambrian Period was a critical time in Earth's history. During this immense span of time nearly every modern group of animals appeared. Although life had been around for more than 2 million millennia, Cambrian rocks preserve the record of the first appearance of complex animals with eyes, protective skeletons, antennae, and complex ecologies. Grazing, predation, and multi-tiered ecosystems with animals living in, on, or above the sea floor became common. The cascade of interaction led to an ever-increasing diversification of animal body types. By the end of the period, the ancestors of sponges, corals, jellyfish, worms, mollusks, brachiopods, arthropods, echinoderms, and vertebrates were all in place. The evidence of this Cambrian "explosion" is preserved in rocks all over the world, including North America, where the seemingly strange animals of the period are preserved in exquisite detail in deposits such as the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. Cambrian Ocean World tells the story of what is, for us, the most important period in our planet's long history.

Download or read book Epigenetic Mechanisms of the Cambrian Explosion written by Nelson R Cabej and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2019-10-12 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epigenetic Mechanisms of the Cambrian Explosion provides readers with a basic biological knowledge and epigenetic explanation of the biological puzzle of the Cambrian explosion, the unprecedented rapid diversification of animals that began 542 million years ago. During an evolutionarily instant of ~10 million years, which represents only 0.3% of the time of existence of life on Earth, or less than 2% of the time of existence of metazoans, all of the 30 extant body plans, major animal groups (phyla) and several extinct groups appeared. The work helps address this phenomena and tries to answer remaining questions for evolutionary biology, epigenetics, and scientific researchers. The book recognizes and presents objective representations of alternative theories for epigenetic evolution in this period, with the author drawing on his epigenetic theory of evolution to explain the causal basis of the Cambrian explosion. Both empirical evidence and theoretical arguments are presented in support of this thought-provoking epigenetic theory. - Explains the Cambrian explosion from an entirely epigenetic view - Takes a causal rather than descriptive approach to the phenomenon - Allows for a broad readership, including those with only a basic biological knowledge, while maintaining scientific rigor

Download or read book Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History written by Stephen Jay Gould and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1990-09-17 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[An] extraordinary book. . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer. . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."—James Gleick, New York Times Book Review High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

Download or read book On the Origin of Phyla written by James W. Valentine and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2004-06-18 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Owing its inspiration and title to On the Origin of Species, James W. Valentine's ambitious book synthesizes and applies the vast treasury of theory and research collected in the century and a half since Darwin's time. By investigating the origins of life's diversity, Valentine unlocks the mystery of the origin of phyla. One of the twentieth century's most distinguished paleobiologists, Valentine here integrates data from molecular genetics, evolutionary developmental biology, embryology, comparative morphology, and paleontology into an analysis of interest to scholars from any of these fields. He begins by examining the sorts of evidence that can be gleaned from fossils, molecules, and morphology, then reviews and compares the basic morphology and development of animal phyla, emphasizing the important design elements found in the bodyplans of both living and extinct phyla. Finally, Valentine undertakes the monumental task of developing models to explain the origin and early diversification of animal phyla, as well as their later evolutionary patterns. Truly a magnum opus, On the Origin of Phyla will take its place as one of the classic scientific texts of the twentieth century, affecting the work of paleontologists, morphologists, and developmental, molecular, and evolutionary biologists for decades to come. "A magisterial compendium . . . . Valentine offers a judicious evaluation of an astonishing array of evidence."—Richard Fortey, New Scientist "Truly a magnum opus, On the Origin of Phyla has already taken its place as one of the classic scientific texts of the twentieth century, affecting the work of paleontologists, morphologists, and developmental, molecular, and evolutionary biologists for decades to come."—Ethology, Ecology & Evolution "Valentine is one of the Renaissance minds of our time. . . . Darwin wisely called his best-known work On the Origin of the Species; the origin of the phyla is an even stickier problem, and Valentine deserves credit for tackling it at such breadth . . . . A magnificient book."—Stefan Bengtson, Nature