CAMBRIAN CREATURES EXPLODED ACR0SS THE WORLD

For much of known life on Earth, that life was simple--organisms such as bacteria, algae and fungi occupied the pre-Cambrian time. However, beginning about 541 million years ago, at the start of the Cambrian period, things dramatically changed. Life suddenly diversified and multiplied into complex forms, with such new features as brain, eyes, mouth, digestive system, outer skin and body segments. This 25 million year period commonly is called the Cambrian explosion, for obvious reasons.

Fossil evidence of the Cambrian explosion was discovered in 1909 in the Burgess shale of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Now, a recent article reports that another site of Cambrian explosion fossils has been discovered in China, called Qingjiang.* This new location is said to show many taxa not seen before as well some in common with the first site.

The article may be of interest for what it did not address. For example, it now appears that the Cambrian explosion took place at about the same time in places thousands of miles distant from each other--Canada and China. While the two sites do not share fully identical fossil creatures, differences in ancient marine environments may explain differences in creatures found. The point is they share the explosion of complex life-forms.

The article also did not offer why the Cambrian explosion occurred; that is, why pre-Cambrian simple celled organisms suddenly became complex with all sorts of sizes and shapes. Was that the work of "intelligent design?" This question, of course, always seems to be the elephant in the room that no one admits to seeing. Further, if it is the hand of intelligent design, the unspoken, ultimate question is who is the intelligent designer?

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*Gramling,"Fossils Expand Variety of Early
Life," Science News, April 27, 2019, p.14

© 2019 Daniel J. Kucera