What was the Cambrian explosion and why is it so exciting for palaeontologists?

28/09/2023 35 min Episodio 69
What was the Cambrian explosion and why is it so exciting for palaeontologists?

Listen "What was the Cambrian explosion and why is it so exciting for palaeontologists?"

Episode Synopsis

The dinosaurs might take all the glory but well before they existed there was a very important period. Laura and Ellie discuss the 'explosion' in animal biodiversity that started around 541 million years ago and how we know it happened. They also speculate on what sort of animal might be missing from the fossil record and somehow come to the strange conclusion that balloon animals might have been real.
Sources of information for the factual stuff:
Rocks (iron) absorbed free oxygen from britannica.com
The study suggesting that animals left the seas as their eyes evolved and got bigger was reported on quantamagazine.com
The study on the oldest animal (the floppy sea-dwelling bath mat) was reported on inverse.com