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.
See Note at Burgess Shale
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Earlier studies had interpreted the marks as evidence of wormlike creatures or other tiny marine animals moving through seafloor sediment during the Ediacaran period, which came just before the Cambrian explosion.
From Science Daily • May 12, 2026
Then came the Cambrian explosion, known as evolution's "big bang", roughly 540 million years ago.
From Barron's • Jan. 28, 2026
“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 • Oct. 26, 2025
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 • Nov. 20, 2024
Perhaps some key steps in the development of the genetic code, or the Cambrian explosion, or bipedal stature among our ancestors were initiated by cosmic rays.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
