The great leap forward

• Autores: Robert R. Gaines, Shanan E. Peters
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2921, 2013, págs. 30-31
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Gaines and Peters talk about a ancient geological mystery could explain the origin of animal life. A fossil record of that long history of simple bodies and behaviors has now been uncovered, proving that the Cambrian explosion was a real evolutionary phenomenon that needed to be explained. They propose that a geological phenomenon was a trigger for the explosion of animal life. One hallmark of the Cambrian explosion is the widespread acquisition of mineral skeletons by a number of different animal groups involving several types of minerals, such as the silica shells of microscopic organisms called radiolaria, and the calcium carbonate shells of now-extinct arthropods called trilobites.