Massive New Cambrian-Era Fossil Bed Found

jfbilodeau sends word of a massive new trove of fossils located in Canada, which scientists say will rival the acclaimed Burgess Shale fossil bed. The rock formation inside which both fossil sites were found is roughly 505 million years old (abstract). The fossils provide insight into the Cambrian explosion, a time that brought the rapid appearance and diversification of many animal forms. "In just two weeks, the research team collected more than 3,000 fossils representing 55 species. Fifteen of these species are new to science." Paleontologist Jean-Bernard Caron said, "The rate at which we are finding animals — many of which are new — is astonishing, and there is a high possibility that we'll eventually find more species here than at the original Yoho National Park site, and potentially more than from anywhere else in the world." The fossils at the new site are about 100,000 years younger and are better preserved than those at the renowned Burgess shale site.

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One of the most misunderstood term. CE

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Cambrian explosion is one of the most misunderstood terms, sometimes very willfully misrepresented. The "explosion" unfloded over a minimum of 10 million years, but more likely estimate is between 20 and 50 million years. For a species that has been in existence for less than 0.1 million years, belonging to a genus existing for less than 3 million years calling this an "explosion" is incomprehensible. Tool usage is less than 2 million years old. Fire has been tamed for 0.5 million years. Language is probably 0.075 million years old. Domestication of animals is 0.015 million years old. Plants> 0.01 million years, writing is 0.005 million years old. Metallurgy is 0.004 million years old at most. Now try to imagine how long 10 million years was.

All that happened was the emergence of bones/shells. This was the first thing that could fossilize. Everything earlier had just soft tissues and they did not fossilize well. So there was an "explosion" of fossilization, not necessarily speciation.