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No Cambrian Mass Extinction?

May 21, 2010 11:07:31.525

This is an interesting story - a new fossil find in Morocco has turned up specimens descended from what science calls the "Cambrian Explosion". It's entirely possible that the lack of life found after that era is a gap in the fossil record, not an extinction event:

The international team of scientists who discovered the 1,500 fossils said their find shows that the dark stretch in the fossil record more probably reflects an absence of preservation of fossils over the previous 25 million years.

It's not that big a surprise that there are data gaps in stuff this old - nothing on the planet stays static.

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posted by James Robertson

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