Conversations about geology with researchers making key contributions to our understanding of the Earth and the Solar System
What moves the continents, creates mountains, swallows up the sea floor, makes volcanoes erupt, triggers earthquakes, and imprints ancient climates into the rocks? Oliver Strimpel, a former astrophysicist and museum director, asks leading researchers to divulge what they have discovered and how they did it.
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Geology Bites currently has 99 episodes, each about 30 minutes long. You can use the index to browse by topic.
If you’d like to be notified when a new episode comes out, you can set that up on the Contact page.
~~~ New Episode December 10, 2024 ~~~
Rob Strachan on the Caledonian Orogeny
Paul Smith on the Cambrian Explosion
Complex life did not start in the Cambrian — it was there in the Ediacaran, the period that preceded the Cambrian. And the physical and chemical environment that prevailed in the early to middle Cambrian may well have arisen at earlier times in Earth history. So what exactly was the Cambrian explosion? And what made it happen when it did, between 541 and 530 million years ago? Many explanations have been proposed, but, as Paul Smith says in the podcast, they tend to rely on single lines of evidence, such as geological, geochemical, or biological. He favors explanations that involve interaction and feedback among processes that stem from multiple disciplines. His own research includes extensive study of a site where Cambrian fossils are exceptionally well preserved in the far north of Greenland.
If you’d like to be notified when a new episode of Geology Bites becomes available, you can set that up on the Contact page.