Life was single-celled and boring for billions of years, then BOOM! the ancestors of most animals alive today appeared – thanks to a perfect storm of events
THE "tink, tink" of chisel on rock echoes across the valley. High up in the Rocky Mountains of Canada, half a dozen palaeontologists are patiently splitting chunks of shale. Sunburnt, covered in rock dust, with hands blistered from their labours, they have been living rough here near Marble Canyon for four weeks now. The season is short, and they spend almost every daylight hour at the quarry, a rock face about 4 metres deep. But their efforts are paying off.
Before long, a block falls open to reveal an almost perfectly preserved arthropod from half a billion years ago – a distant cousin of today's insects and crustaceans. Hour after hour, the finds continue – more than 3000 so far. And the richest ...
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