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Cambrian enigmas
Author(s) -
MORRIS SIMON CONWAY
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
geology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.188
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1365-2451
pISSN - 0266-6979
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2451.1987.tb00495.x
Subject(s) - geology , paleontology , extinction event , luck , extinction (optical mineralogy) , range (aeronautics) , diversification (marketing strategy) , biological dispersal , epistemology , philosophy , demography , population , materials science , marketing , sociology , business , composite material
Bizarre soft‐bodied animals from the Cambrian, principally the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, are throwing new light on the major diversification of early metazoans. A distinctive range of new body‐plans hint at explosive rates of evolution, but the underlying mechanisms are still a matter for conjecture. Whether these unusual fossils suffered extinction because of bad design or bad luck is uncertain, but some evidence suggests that chance factors played an important role.