Cambrian Explosion

Scientific  

1. The rapid diversification of multicellular animal life that took place around the beginning of the Cambrian Period. It resulted in the appearance of almost all modern animal phyla.

2. See Note at Burgess Shale

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Example Sentences

Another was the “anal breakthrough,” Mr. Kukushkin’s favored explanation for the “Cambrian explosion” 540 million years ago, when complex animal life diversified rapidly: The pivotal moment came when a simple, wormlike animal developed a through-gut—a digestive tube with an opening at each end.

From The Wall Street Journal

“Creativity could be about to go through a Cambrian explosion, and along with it, the quality of art and entertainment can drastically increase,” Altman wrote, calling this genre of engagement “interactive fan fiction.”

From Los Angeles Times

It's not always an absolutely gobsmacking profusion of uncontrollably bizarre life, as occurred with what's aptly called the Cambrian Explosion, a period about 540 million years ago when evolution got extremely creative.

From Salon

By the beginning of the Cambrian explosion of multicellular organisms about 540 million years ago, the ancestors of today’s ecdysozoans were already alive and varied in form and behavior, suggesting they arose even earlier.

From Science Magazine

The species was probably not the ecdysozoans’ common ancestor, the authors say, but the discovery adds to the diversity of life before the Cambrian explosion.

From Science Magazine