In the first 20 million years of the Cambrian period, Earth experienced an explosion of life—a great evolutionary era dubbed the Cambrian Explosion. Scientists have differing views on what drove this phenomenon, but this one may be the strangest one yet: poop. Literally. Just a sh*t ton of poop.
Specifically, a slow accumulation of fecal matter—poop—helped allocate organic material and nutrients throughout the ocean, which in turn made marine environments ripe for the birth and evolution of life. The findings, published yesterday in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, suggest a key connection between the distribution of fossilized feces and the…
Read the full article at GIZMODO.COM
