| Abstract: | The end of the Proterozoic–beginning of the Cambrian is marked by some of the most dramatic events in the history of Earth. The fall of the Ediacaran biota, followed by the Cambrian Explosion of skeletonised bilaterians, a pronounced shift in oceanic and atmospheric chemistry and rapid climatic change from ‘snowball earth’ to ‘greenhouse’ conditions all happened within a rather geologically short period of time. These events took place against a background of the rearrangement of the prevailing supercontinent; some authors view this as a sequence of individual supercontinents such as Mesoproterozoic Midgardia, Neoproterozoic Rodinia and Early Cambrian Pannotia. Assembled in the Mesoproterozoic, this supercontinent appears to have existed through the Neoproterozoic into the Early Cambrian with periodic changes in configuration. The final rearrangement took place during the Precambrian–Cambrian transition with the Cadomian and related phases of the Pan-African orogeny. The distribution of Early Cambrian molluscs and other small shelly fossils (SSF) across all continents indicates a close geographic proximity of all major cratonic basins that is consistent with the continued existence of the supercontinent at that time. Subsequently, Rodinia experienced breakup that led to the amalgamation of Gondwana, separation of Laurentia, Baltica, Siberia and some small terranes and the emergence of oceanic basins between them. Spreading oceanic basins caused a gradual geographic isolation of the faunal assemblages that were united during the Vendian–Early Cambrian. |
