Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary

The events across the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary brought about some of the most dramatic geological changes in the Earth's history: the appearance of invertebrates, including animals with hard parts, that began the Phanerozoic fossil record. This collection of articles provides a review of the "Precambrian-Cambrian boundary problem" as seen by a group of specialists active in this often controversial area of research. For more than a decade, international groups have discovered new information about the sequence of events at this time, centred around the question of where to fix the actual boundary point. Much of this recent information is gathered here together in English for the first time to provide a chronological framework essential to understanding the evolutionary extinctions and explosions that brought the Precambrian period to an end. The study is intended to serve as a brief review of research aimed at specialists in the problem and also to general geologists in academic and resource fields as a state-of-the-art introduction to further reading. The authors of this volume are members of the Working Group on the Precambian-Cambrian boundary.Table of ContentPart 1 Regional overviews: South-east Newfoundland and adjacent areas (Avalon Zone), S.Conway Morris; China and the Palaeotethyan Belt (India, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Mongolia), M.D.Brasier; Siberia and Eastern Europe, J.W.Cowie; sections in England and their correlation, M.D.Brasier; other areas - North-west Canada, California, Nevada and Mexico, Morocco, Spain and France, M.D.Brasier and J.W.Cowie. Part 2 Specialized topics: biostratigraphy of the ealiest skeletalized biotas, M.D.Brasier; trace fossils, T.P.Crimes; chronometry, J.W.Cowie and W.B.Harland; palaeoclimatology, W.B.Harland.