#418: The Cambrian Explosion

The Cambrian Explosion is the name given to an important period in the development of life on Earth. 

Around 530 million years ago, a wide variety of animals burst onto the evolutionary scene in an event known as the Cambrian explosion. 

In perhaps as few as 10 million years, marine animals evolved most of the basic body forms that we observe in modern groups. This added massively to the biodiversity of the world.

The Oxford Museum of Natural History has a display on this period.

There is some debate of course about whether it actually happened as many think. Nobody was around to see it of course, and the fossil record is sometimes open to debate.

One of the most important sites is the Burgess Shale, where much of this activity can be traced. This was mentioned in books by Richard Fortey.

Image copyright: Brittanica

Publisher
Encyclopædia Britannica
URL
https://www.britannica.com/science/Cambrian-explosion#/media/1/90620/124131
Access Date
October 21, 2024

#340: Mary Anning

Mary Anning was an early palaeontologist. She was particularly linked with the town of Lyme Regis in Dorset. There is a museum largely dedicated to her life there, and she has also been a recent stamp release with images of her finds.

She knew far more than other learned gentlemen of the time, but her gender prevented her from being included in debates and other aspects of work at that time.

A few years ago, a fundraising campaign was successful in raising funds for a statue to be installed in Lyme Regis.

A statue of pioneering 19th-century fossil hunter and palaeontologist Mary Anning was unveiled in her home town of Lyme Regis on what would have been her 222nd birthday. A monument worthy of this monumental woman was revealed on Saturday 21 May 2022 by Professor Alice Roberts.

The installation of the statue marked the culmination of a four year campaign by the Mary Anning Rocks group which was started by schoolgirl Evie Swire, then aged 11 and her mother, Anya Pearson.

The statue is situated at the junction between Long Entry and Gun Cliff Walk.

I've been to pay my respects each time I've visited since it was unveiled. I shall be heading back there next month.

Image: Sam Parkinson

#312: Stamp Issue: Mary Anning

Stamps are often given designs which connect with Natural History, as well as historical figures,  A recent issue featured Mary Anning. She will be featured in a forthcoming post as young people deserve to learn about her pioneering work in an area which is likely to feature in the specification.

What other stamp issues have a Natural History theme?

I've previously used stamp design as a creative task. A blank outline of a stamp (although I need to find one with the King rather than the late Queen is a useful template for creative design work.

#159: Dinosaur Island

The result of the original consultation and published ideas to build subject criteria around was to include life in the early world: the evolution of life and the dinosaurs.

The Isle of Wight is one of the best places to go to find fossils and evidence of dinosaurs in the UK. It would make an excellent location for a fieldtrip with students for those schools that were able to make the journey - by ferry or hovercraft - an extra logistical consideration.

The Natural History Museum has created a useful video on the 'dinosaur island' as it calls it.

The Isle of Wight's tourist board also makes something of their status as the "dinosaur capital" of England.

There's a Dinosaur Isle museum with an impressive collection of fossils in Sandown.

#158: Ancient Earth

Exploring the development of the world's continents and its changing tectonic history is part of the suggested specification.

Discover when you home was last under the sea with this interactive globe of the Earth's changing sea levels over the last 135,000 years.https://t.co/xfV3bnurdx pic.twitter.com/1O1BC0ew1U

— gmapsmania mapstodon.space/@mapsmania (@gmapsmania) November 2, 2023

Check out the map here.

About 300 million years ago, Earth didn't have seven continents, but instead one massive supercontinent called Pangaea, which was surrounded by a single ocean called Panthalassa.

This would go well along with the Ancient Earth map, which allows you to go back through phases of life on Earth.

This is an interesting area of the proposed specification. I will be interested to see whether this remains in the final document as it is quite a different period of natural history - when certain species emerged for the first time according to evidence in the fossil record.