Cambrian Period

Cambrian Period

(541 - 485.4 Million Years Ago)

Plants

How was the world like?

The Cambrian Explosion

Organisms

FUN FACTS!

How was the world during the Cambrian Period like?

• This period is marked by abrupt episodes of sea level rise, serving as trigger for evolutionary changes .
• The climate was warm with "quasi-stable ecossystem conditions."
• This period is a perfect example how the complex interplay of physical-chemical effects can change all the Earth's biosphere.

(L.E. Babcock et al.,2015)

References:

• Babcock, Loren E., et al. "Global climate, sea level cycles, and biotic events in the Cambrian Period." Palaeoworld 24.1-2 (2015): 5-15.​​​​
• Davies, Neil S., and Martin R. Gibling. "Cambrian to Devonian evolution of alluvial systems: the sedimentological impact of the earliest land plants." Earth-Science Reviews 98.3-4 (2010): 171-200.
• PBS Eons. "From the Cambrian Explosion to the Great Dying." Youtube, 2018.
• Peng, Sh Ch, Loren E. Babcock, and Per Ahlberg. "The Cambrian Period." Geologic time scale 2020. Elsevier, 2020. 565-629.
• Seward, Albert Charles. Plant life through the ages: A geological and botanical retrospect. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Fun Facts!

• There were three Faunal Provinces during the first-half of the Cambrian Period, characterize by the following species (S.C. Peng et al., 2020):
• Afro-European Province: Anthomorphidae,
• Australo-Antarctica Province: Flindersicyathidae, Metacyathidae, and Syringocnemidae,
• Siberian Province: belonged to all families.
• Pikaia and Haikouella organisms developed the ability to swim under their own power, becoming ancestors of the vertebrates (PBS Eons, 2018).
• Although the organisms dominated the oceans, the terrestrial surface had microbial communities (Davies and Gibling, 2010).
• Scientists believe the changes in the Cambrian Period sea level might have been caused by changes in Earth's Mantle (Babcock et al., 2015).

Cambrian Plants

There are few plants evidence from this Period. However, the fossils show species simillar to recent seaweed (Seward, 2010). When discussing the Cabrian Period plants, Davies and Giblings concludes "(Cambrian Period) marks the most minimal stabilisation of continental substrates considered" (2010).

The Cambrian Explosion

This event represents the appearance of new and more complex species.

• A sudden rise in the amount of planctons in the oceans caused a rise in the oxygen levels.
• Erosion caused changes in the chemistry of the ocean. As a result, animals could develop shells and exoskeletons.
• Animals developed adaptations that can be seen today:
• Calcified heart parts,
• Flexible limbs,
• Eyes.
• These evolutions allowed the formation of complex food-webs.
• Ended mysteriously with the Cambrian-Ordovician Extinction Event.
• Desappearence of trilobite and mollusk species.

(PBS Eons, 2018)

Organisms

Organisms dominated the Oceans

• Planctons
• Animals with shells and Exoskeletons
• Naroia
• Burgessia
• Pelagiella
• Animals with crucial adaptation
• Coronacollina
• Opabinia
• Hallucigenia
• Mollusk
• Trilobite

• First large predatory organisms
• Anomalocaris
• Pikaia
• Haikouella

(PBS Eons, 2018)