2013 Lyell Meeting: The Cambrian Explosion
11 March 2013
It is becoming clear that the major animal clades diverged tens of millions of years before their first appearance in the fossil record. This meeting brings together palaeobiologists, ichnologists, geneticists, geochemists and stratigraphers to re-assess the complex processes that operated in ecosystems before, during and after the Cambrian Explosion.
The Cambrian explosion of around 530 million years ago saw the relatively rapid appearance of most major animal phyla in the fossil record. However, molecular information suggests that the major animal clades diverged tens of millions of years earlier than this. To understand this macroevolutionary lag, we need a multidisciplinary understanding of Cambrian Earth systems, from sea-level change and ocean geochemistry, to biomineralisation and ecosystem engineering.
This meeting will bring together palaeobiologists, ichnologists, geneticists, geochemists and stratigraphers to reassess the complex, non-uniformitarian processes that operated in ecosystems before, during and after the Cambrian explosion. It will examine the varied feedback processes which operated in these ecosystems, and the changes that occured across the Ediacaran - Cambrian boundary - including the so called 'Great Unconfirmity' - a gap in the fossil record which has puzzled geologists for centuries.
Further information: www.geolsoc.org.uk/lyell13