Cafe Sci Orlando announcements for 2011-08: "The Cambrian Explosion"
Chad MILLER
* Topic, "The Cambrian Explosion"
Topic, "The Cambrian Explosion"
Hi. This month we will have a fascinating discussion at our Cafe Sci at
7PM on Wednesday 3 August, at Taste, in College Park.
The Cambrian "Explosion" is a colorful name sometimes given to the
adaptive radiation of animals with bilateral symmetry, seen in the
early Cambrian period, approximately 540 to 510 million years ago. This
critical span in life's history has been a topic of keen interest for
not only scientists but also many nonscientists ever since the
publication of _Wonderful Life_ by Stephen Jay Gould (1989). In that
provocative work, Gould emphasized the bizarre morphology and
problematic taxonomy of some of the invertebrate fossils of the Middle
Cambrian Burgess Shale. In the twenty-plus years that have followed,
new discoveries from the fossil record and the living world have been
producing a better picture of early animal evolution, shedding light on
the origins of some of the major branches on the animal tree of life
(including arthropods, mollusks, and vertebrates). Furthermore, the
explosiveness of this adaptive radiation has been defused by
improvements in the record of Early Cambrian and Neoproterozoic
(pre-Cambrian) fossils. Proposed causes of the Cambrian radiation are
numerous and varied; in this talk we will explore the merits of the
most prominent ideas.
John Werner has been a professor of Earth Sciences in the Physical
Sciences Department at Seminole State College since 2003. He obtained a
B.S. in geology from the California Institute of Technology and an M.S.
and Ph.D. in geology (concentration in invertebrate paleontology) from
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While at UIUC, he
earned that school's highest award for undergraduate teaching. At
Seminole State, he has originated three courses in geology, including
Fossils and the History of Life.
Directions
Taste
717 W. Smith Street
Orlando, United States
32804
Taste is near the corner of Princeton Street (really Smith Street after
the fork) and Edgewater Drive, so about 2 minutes from I-4 to parking.
One can park on the street or in the parking lot behind Taste.
* From Downtown and south, drive north ("east") on I-4 through
downtown. At the exit for Princeton Street, exit and turn
left/west.
* From Altamonte Springs and north, drive south ("west") on I-4
toward downtown Orlando. At the exit for Princeton Street, exit and
turn right/west.
From I-4, drive a few blocks to Edgewater Drive. At the intersection,
you should see a orange building ahead of you, labeled "Taste". Park on
the street or behind Taste.