The Cambrian Explosion: when animal development accelerated
About 540 million years ago something very dramatic happened to the evolution of life here on Earth, called the Cambrian explosion. We can see the traces of it in the fossil layers all over the globe. If we look for remnants of multi cell life in soil layers that are older than 540 million years old, we find very little. While we see a lot of different fossils in the layers younger than 540 million years. It took a very long time from when life began on Earth nearly 4 billion years ago until it developed the diversity that appeared in the Cambrian explosion.
Emma Hammarlund has a hypothesis that may explain what triggered the Cambrian evolution, she will tell about it and we will ask her if it can explain the geological observations.
Emma Hammerlund is a geobiologist and a Researcher of the Division of Translational Cancer Research at Lund University. She is curious about the diversification of animals on Earth and how tumors may reveal clues to animal evolution.