The Cambrian Explosion

The Cambrian explosion is named for the geologically sudden appearance of numerous metazoan body plans some 540 million years ago (James W. Valentine et al. 1999). In Earth’s pre-history during the Cambrian period many animal phyla suddenly appear in fossil records and introduced more complex organisms. “For that the evolution of the planet Earth is described by the co-evolution of the geosphere biosphere system” (Werner Von Bloh et al. 2003). A sudden increase of biomass and rapid cooling had occurred without much explanation but that caused the widespread of the introduction of more complex organisms and multicellular life. A compilation of the patterns of fossil and molecular diversification, comparative developmental data, and information
(2003) tested a new hypothesis for what triggered the Cambrian period and caused the big explosion causing many new animal phyla to appear. Using an extrinsic mechanism related to nonlinear geosphere-biosphere feedbacks Werner Von Bloh et al.(2003) did an experiment to see and show the effects of changes in environmental conditions. Three different types of biosphere were incorporated (prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and complex multicellular life) to test dramatic changes in state of environment. For testing the three biosphere types Werner Von Bloh at al. (2003) use the global carbon cycle model of Franck et al. (2002). The global carbon cycle model describes “the evolution of the mass of carbon in the mantle.” After solving for the three biosphere types using the modified global carbon cycle the results prove to show that the first appearance of modern animal phyla pre-dates this event. Molecular Phylogeny and fossil traces conclude that metazoan emerged some 1.5 Gyr ago. (Werner Von Bloh et al. 2003). Around 2 Gyr ago Eukaryotes first seem to appear due to the global surface temperatures reaching tolerance for eukaryotes to survive. This moment relates to the rapid temperature drops caused by increasing continental area which results in increase of the weathering flux which takes out CO2 from the atmosphere. On the other hand, the first appearance of complex multicellular life starts with an abundant increase in biomass strongly correlated with a decrease in Cambrian global surface temperature. In Conclusion, there is evidence that the Cambrian explosion was caused by extrinsic environmental causes such as the rapid cooling of the earth but due to the increase of biomass it also could have been triggered by nonlinear geosphere-biosphere interactions. The Earth is a self-regulating system since it has been actively being changed by the biosphere to maintain appropriate temperature conditions for its