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Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary: the spike is driven and the monolith crumbles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

J. John Sepkoski Jr.  and
Andrew H. Knoll
J. John Sepkoski Jr.
Affiliation:
Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, 5734 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637
Andrew H. Knoll
Affiliation:
Department of Organic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 16 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
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Extract

The Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary traditionally has been viewed as a fundamental discontinuity in the historical record of life. Almost from the birth of stratigraphic geology, it was recognized that the richly fossiliferous strata of Cambrian and younger periods were underlain by sedimentary rocks largely devoid of macroscopic fossils. Darwin (1872) was well aware of this dichotomy and of the “sudden manner in which several groups of species first appear” in the rock record. In the sixth edition of the Origin of Species (1872), he wrote, “The case [for this sudden appearance] at present must remain inexplicable … and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views [on evolution] here entertained.” Careful biostratigraphic work by Walcott and others in the closing decades of the nineteenth century accentuated rather than dispelled the problem. Diverse Early Cambrian invertebrate assemblages were documented from North America and Scandinavia, but repeated searches for comparable fossils in Precambrian strata produced only a few, enigmatic remains (see review by Yochelson [1979]).

Type
Current Happenings
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , Summer 1983 , pp. 199 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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References

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