Factors that lead to the Cambrian explosion and what followed
Randy Cheng
Cheng.801
ID#: 200357882 Factors that lead to the Cambrian explosion and what followed
ID#: 57882
Introduction:
The Cambrian explosion is thought of as the time where organisms on Earth started to diversify and form skeletons that could be fossilized. The development of fossils in early organisms is what gave scientists what they needed to start learning about how life really began to evolve. This event is usually described as a quick process as if the species evolved instantly within a few years. But on the contrary the duration of this incident lasted for about 25 million years (7). The cause of such an explosion during this time is still being hypothesized, …show more content…
One significant change to the environment would be the movement of tectonic plates that affected biodiversity (7). Zhang et al. (7) pointed out that the formation of mountains from clashing continents caused a shift in weather patterns which resulted in increased nutrients. In his paper he mentioned specifically the formation of the trans-Gondwana mountain range that resulted in an increase in phosphorus from a change in weather patterns. Pages et al. (1) discovered that within these tectonic plate shifts were clues that could help piece together what changes happened that led to this expansion of biodiversity. In their study they predicted that euxinia was the cause of the increase of nutrients from an abundance marine life death. The definition of euxinia is water lacking dissolved oxygen and an excess amount of sulfide in the water. These two combined together killed of a mass amount of marine life, but this resulted in an increase in nutrients for current organisms which allowed for the evolution of life. Peters et al. (8) suggested that this event called the Great Unconformity started environmental changes for evolution of biomineralization for the Cambrian explosion after the Neoproterozoic appearance of …show more content…
According to Zhang et al. (7) it was hypothesized that the salinity in the oceans had decreased since most eukaryotic organisms are not halotolerant or halophiles. It was assumed since there was a huge evolution of multicellular organisms that the salt content of the oceans had to be decreased to optimal levels for these new animals to grow and thrive properly. This hypothesis is still under research because data on the salinity of the oceans is not accurate.
Environmental, oxygen
Randy Cheng
Cheng.801
ID#: 200357882 Factors that lead to the Cambrian explosion and what followed
ID#: 57882
Introduction:
The Cambrian explosion is thought of as the time where organisms on Earth started to diversify and form skeletons that could be fossilized. The development of fossils in early organisms is what gave scientists what they needed to start learning about how life really began to evolve. This event is usually described as a quick process as if the species evolved instantly within a few years. But on the contrary the duration of this incident lasted for about 25 million years (7). The cause of such an explosion during this time is still being hypothesized, …show more content…
One significant change to the environment would be the movement of tectonic plates that affected biodiversity (7). Zhang et al. (7) pointed out that the formation of mountains from clashing continents caused a shift in weather patterns which resulted in increased nutrients. In his paper he mentioned specifically the formation of the trans-Gondwana mountain range that resulted in an increase in phosphorus from a change in weather patterns. Pages et al. (1) discovered that within these tectonic plate shifts were clues that could help piece together what changes happened that led to this expansion of biodiversity. In their study they predicted that euxinia was the cause of the increase of nutrients from an abundance marine life death. The definition of euxinia is water lacking dissolved oxygen and an excess amount of sulfide in the water. These two combined together killed of a mass amount of marine life, but this resulted in an increase in nutrients for current organisms which allowed for the evolution of life. Peters et al. (8) suggested that this event called the Great Unconformity started environmental changes for evolution of biomineralization for the Cambrian explosion after the Neoproterozoic appearance of …show more content…
According to Zhang et al. (7) it was hypothesized that the salinity in the oceans had decreased since most eukaryotic organisms are not halotolerant or halophiles. It was assumed since there was a huge evolution of multicellular organisms that the salt content of the oceans had to be decreased to optimal levels for these new animals to grow and thrive properly. This hypothesis is still under research because data on the salinity of the oceans is not accurate.
Environmental, oxygen