Planet Earth - Cambrian Period

The Cambrian Period ran from 542 to 488 million years ago. Not literally ran. The period is the first period of the Paleozoic Era. The best place to look at Cambrian rock examples is in wales, the Latin for Wales being Cambria. This is also where Alec Amos, past Whatlington village members, moved to after leaving the village. He and his wife worked hard especially for the village hall and he was the originator of the Whatlington Duck Race at the Village Fete on the River Line.

Back to the Cambrian rocks and due to their age and their structure being altered through metamorphic movements, it is quite hard to comprehend their specific geographic reconstructions. However, it is purported that Pannotia, a super continent, was breaking up early in the Cambrian period with other smaller land masses (Baltic, Laurentian and Siberia) having calved from Gondwana's super continent. It is thought that most land masses were in the southern hemisphere in the early Cambrian with a slow migration of continents towards the northern hemisphere during the latter part of the Cambrian period.

The land was mainly desert-like with potential microbial mats of algae, fungi and lichens. However, with the reduction in the quantity of sea ice in the Cambrian period, there was a rise in the sea levels and thus shallower seas formed around the edges of the land masses.  This period saw an increase in aquatic biodiversity, despite the disappearance of of animals that relied upon microbial mats on the sea floor. These mats were destroyed by the increase presence of burrowing animals. The greater an animal's ability to adapt increases its success to taking over a new ecological niche. Similar to business today.

There is evidence for species becoming more mineralised. The process through which an organic substance becomes impregnated by inorganic substances - for example a bacterium may use the organic part of matter thus leaving the waste minerals within the body. This process aided the preservation of fossilised records of life. However at this time, the mineralised species were found at the benthic level of the sea, the lowest part of the sea, in the water column and the Cambrian fauna lived on or above the sea bed.

Planet Earth - The Ediacaran Period

The last period of the Neoproterozoic Era, it ran from 630 to 542 million years ago and named after a South Australian range of hills (where some fossils of the Edicaran period were found in 1946). This period had few faunal fossils as animals had yet to form hard shells. But it does record the oldest definitive multicellular organisms with tissues - the most regular examples being segmented worms. This site gives an introduction to Ediacaran fauna.

Whatlington News Readers

Welcome to this blog or online resource to both Whatlington and Vinehall Street's history. As you may have noticed from the titles of other posts that you can see to the right of this panel describe some times past. If you go far enough back, you will see some memories of both villages. I then decided to go back to the beginning of time, as much as Science can tell us. I am in the process of adding titles to the periods up to the current day so that They can be added to in greater detail later on. If you have some archival material that you would like to add, please leave me a message at wvarchive@hotmail.co.uk and I hope to bring us to date very soon, all the best and have a lovely day.