News tagged with cambrian explosion

Related topics: fossil

Great Unconformity: Evidence for a geologic trigger of the Cambrian explosion

(Phys.org) -- The oceans teemed with life 600 million years ago, but the simple, soft-bodied creatures would have been hardly recognizable as the ancestors of nearly all animals on Earth today.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 18, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (19) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Researchers track half-billion year old predator

Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan and Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have followed fossilized footprints to a multi-legged predator that ruled the seas of the Cambrian period about half a billion ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Nov 09, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Research shows how life might have survived 'snowball Earth'

Global glaciation likely put a chill on life on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago, but new research indicates that simple life in the form of photosynthetic algae could have survived in a narrow body ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 11, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Fossil of giant ancient sea predator discovered (w/ video)

Paleontologists have discovered that a group of remarkable ancient sea creatures existed for much longer and grew to much larger sizes than previously thought, thanks to extraordinarily well-preserved fossils ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 25, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (16) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

'Walking cactus' rewrites arthropod odyssey

Fossils of a bizarre animal dubbed the "walking cactus" have shed light on the evolution of crabs and spiders, Chinese researchers reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Feb 23, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (19) | comments 7

Oldest fossils of large seaweeds, worm-like animals tell story of ancient oxygen

Almost 600 million years ago, before the rapid evolution of life forms known as the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche near what is now Lantian, ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 23, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 14 | with audio podcast

Skeletons in the pre-Cambrian closet

The Cambrian explosion marked a major blossoming in the tree of life around 540 million years ago. Nearly all of the major phyla in the animal kingdom appeared in a sudden burst of evolution. One of the drivers ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jan 07, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (14) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Scientists decipher 3 billion-year-old genomic fossils

(PhysOrg.com) -- About 580 million years ago, life on Earth began a rapid period of change called the Cambrian Explosion, a period defined by the birth of new life forms over many millions of years that ultimately ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Dec 19, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (24) | comments 30 | with audio podcast

Gondwana supercontinent underwent massive shift during Cambrian explosion

The Gondwana supercontinent underwent a 60-degree rotation across Earth's surface during the Early Cambrian period, according to new evidence uncovered by a team of Yale University geologists. Gondwana made ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Aug 10, 2010 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (20) | comments 14 | with audio podcast

Discovery of a complex, multicellular life from over two billion years ago

The discovery in Gabon of more than 250 fossils in an excellent state of conservation has provided proof, for the first time, of the existence of multicellular organisms 2.1 billion years ago. This finding ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jun 30, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (27) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Fossils show earliest animal trails

(PhysOrg.com) -- Trails found in rocks dating back 565 million years are thought to be the earliest evidence of animal locomotion ever found, Oxford University scientists report.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Feb 04, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Explosive growth of life on Earth fueled by early greening of planet

Earth's 4.5-billion-year history is filled with several turning points when temperatures changed dramatically, asteroids bombarded the planet and life forms came and disappeared. But one of the biggest moments ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jul 08, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 1

Signs point to sponges as earliest animal life

(PhysOrg.com) -- Even Charles Darwin was puzzled by the apparently sudden appearance in the fossil record of a great variety of multicellular creatures — a rapid blossoming known as the Cambrian explosion. ...

Biology /

created Feb 04, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (11) | comments 26