Description

This volume aimed at the general audience 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 Earths 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 multitiered ecosystems with animals living in on or above the sea floor became common The cascade of interaction led to an everincreasing 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 planets long history