Ancient Cambrian Sea
The Cambrian lasted million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period million years ago (mya) to the beginning of the Ordovician Period mya. The Cambrian explosion was a period of rapid multicellular growth. Most animal life during the Cambrian was aquatic. Arthropods were by far the most dominant animals in the ocean, but trilobites were only a minor part of the total arthropod diversity. What made them so apparently abundant was their heavy armor reinforced by calcium carbonate (CaCO3), which fossilized far more easily than the fragile chitinous exoskeletons of other arthropods, leaving numerous preserved remains.
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Photo credit: © Phil Degginger / Alamy / Afripics
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Keywords: ancient, anomalocarids, anoxia, arthropods, biodiversity, bony, brachiopods, burgess, cambrian, cartilaginous, cephalopods, chordates, continental, corals, crinoids, drift, early, era, explosion, fishes, horn, level, life, marine, ocean, oceanic, organisms, paleozoic, period, placoderms, primitive, reef, rise, sea, seas, shale, shallow, soft-bodied, systems, trilobites
