Life in the Cambrian & Ordovician ~542-444 mya | GEO GIRL

[@LuisAldamiz]

Causes of mass extinction: (1) meteorites, (2) snowball Earth, (3) Siberian traps (out of bounds vulcanism) and the worst of all: (4) cute tiny little mosses.

[@GEOGIRL]

So true😂

[@jamesharmer9293]

Gotta watch out for those mosses !!

[@ManguKing]

At this point I wont even be surprised if humans were around back then and caused it XD

[@ManguKing]

@@ar4203 is just a joke buddy

[@ar4203]

@@ManguKing lol sorry I'm used to seeing so many comments on here with people who genuinely believe & say things about like humans existing 300 million years ago with actual giants & aliens who created the pyramids & were lost with atlantis & "academia"& the government doesn't want us to know& actively hide it or whatever

[@brucewilliams4152]

I find the Cambrian explosion fascinating

[@NorthernLime]

Im going to listen to these at work

[@johnfox9169]

What blows my mind about evolutionary history is the explosion of COMPLEXITY in life starting about 600MYA. The foundations had to be laid - that I easily grasp. It's the relative speed of change in "exponential " complexity I find fascinating. The full understanding of these processes are in their infancy. BTW, you do an EXCELLENT job with your presentations!!

[@GEOGIRL]

It is very fascinating! But actually in my more recent readings I have been seeing more people say that it may not have been that rapid or 'explosive' after all. Apparently, it may have been ramping up complexity for millions of years that we just don't have recorded in the rock record because of the lack of hard parts in the soft bodied organisms at the time. But who knows, I so badly wish we could go back in time to watch it all play out!! Thanks for the comment, so glad you enjoy my presentations! ;)

[@NelsonDiscovery]

21:50 Yay! Burrowing Bivalves!!! (I'm sorry (I'm not))

[@Z4RD4N34]

Thank you for introducing me to the "Graptolite." I had never heard of it before and when I saw a picture of it it was like "that can be real."

[@georgefspicka5483]

Hi Rachel. It's cool that you're covering these first two geologic periods. With regard to western Maryland, I believe Stromatolites are the most common fossil in the Ordovician. Most frequently found, in the Cambrian, Antietam Formation, are skolithus tubes, west of Fredrick County. Sometimes lucky collectors will find the trilobite Olenellus, further north in the sediments that reach into Pennsylvania. I've also found what been identified as a "Corophoides" another tube maker.

[@andrewd369]

I've recently stated watching videos about prehistory and find yours to be the right balance between informative and interesting enough for a casual viewing.

[@Smilo-the-Sabertooth]

If I had a wishlist, traveling back in time would surely be at the very top of the list. What I would give to travel back in time during any prehistoric time period to see what life on Earth was like back then. To explore all the different kinds of ancient creatures and life forms and all of the big remarkable changes that this planet constantly went through, only every night in my dreams I guess. But until then, for now I’ve got books, documentaries, museums, my imagination, and this amazing educational channel and that’ll be good enough for me.

[@GEOGIRL]

Oooo! What a intriguing idea! What time period would be your first stop? ;)

[@Smilo-the-Sabertooth]

@@GEOGIRL ​Definitely the Pleistocene, I would love to observe how some of my all time favorite mega-beasts of the Ice Age really used to live in what are now some riches and most famous Ice Age fossil sites in the world, places that I’ve visited before such as the creatures that lived amongst the tar pits of Los Angeles, the creature that left their tracks behind in the gypsum of White Sands, and so many more.

[@Smilo-the-Sabertooth]

@@GEOGIRL What about you? What time period would you most want to visit first?

[@GEOGIRL]

@@Smilo-the-Sabertooth Oh yes, the Pleistocene would be incredible with all the mega fauna!! I wanna see a giant sloth and armadillo! haha Hmm, that is such a difficult choice! I think I would have to go with something in the Precambrian because that would answer all my research questions and I could publish like 10 papers just on what I see hahaha, but even from a non-research standpoint just for fun, I think I would still go with precambrian (probably ~2.4 Ga) to see the great oxidation event and microbial evolutionary changes as well as rock record changes that followed. Although I think I would need to bring an oxygen tank to breathe haha

[@Smilo-the-Sabertooth]

@@GEOGIRL Oh yeah, prehistoric sloths and armadillos, some of the most interestingly bizarre creatures of the Pleistocene. So bizarre in fact, scientists can’t even completely agree what the giant armadillo may have looked like. Just got to be sure to wear something warm if we decide to go during an Ice Age. Come in layers like the woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos did. 🦣 Oooo nice, the Precambrian. Whether it’s for research purposes or not, I think that is an excellent choice. I can see that you are already a couple of steps prepared for visiting this time period. An oxygen tank would surely come in handy for this trip. So many other interesting time periods to visit as well. I would also like to see what El Paso was like during the Late Cretaceous and maybe observe the dinosaurs that left their tracks behind beneath Mt. Cristo Rey and I don’t know, maybe even spend a day at the beach. 🦖🦕🏝😅

[@johnminehan1148]

"That one time in Earth's history . . . ." Sounds like an interesting story.

[@GEOGIRL]

It always is! ;D

[@a.randomjack6661]

Yes, my name has absolutely everything to do with all of this. Merci Geo Girl. Bon dimanche.

[@donaldbrizzolara7720]

Rachel: My favorites from the Burgess Shale will always be Hallucigenia (love that crazy name!) and Opabinia. Such bizarre creatures! The natural world, both past and present, continues to astound me. Wonderful review of life in this oft times puzzling and enigmatic epoch of earth’s history.

[@GEOGIRL]

I love Hallucigenia! I think it was one of the first Burgess shale fauna I learned about because it has such a funky shape haha!

[@myamazingjack8366]

I really enjoy listening to her, she has a nice voice, at least to me is it is a pleasant voice. Especially when she uses highly scientific terminology such as "all the creepy crawlies", "wormy fish-like things".

[@GEOGIRL]

Hahaha yep, I love using super scientific jargon like that ;)

[@JP-re3bc]

It must be awesome to be friends with a girl as smart and cool as her. You go girl.

[@joanfregapane8683]

Such interesting organisms during this period. Thank you for the narrative and illustrations.

[@Hellbender8574]

Another outstanding video. The late Cambrian and Ordovician are my favorites because those fossil strata are literally in my backyard. It's incredible to learn about how the Earth changes life and how living things change the planet Earth. Makes it feel like we are all connected.

[@GEOGIRL]

Oh that's so cool that you have early paleozoic strata where you live! What kind of fossils, if any, can you find there? And yes, I love that about geoscience and all the connections you start to see among everything living and nonliving and past and present :D

[@altair458]

This so cool!! I live in southeast Indiana. Ordovician fossils are common here. Please keep up the good work👍👍👍👍👍

[@GEOGIRL]

Thanks so much! ;D

[@Alberad08]

Thank you for sharing this - always wanted to watch a life report from the Cambrian and Ordovician ;-)

[@JoeAvila-u6y]

Thank you for explaining to the common man the significance of these ancient organisms. Science girl 👍

[@ourtinytale7520]

Learning this after three glasses of wine is awesome¡

[@GEOGIRL]

Haha yes!

[@antonboludo8886]

It is fun to re-do this in detail.

[@carissa8283i]

Thanks for all your hard work.

[@princeshukla7661]

Thanks for the knowledgeable video

[@GEOGIRL]

Of course :D

[@ketonshaw4809]

Thank you for the video. I Always enjoy your content and the knowledge you possess. Keep them coming. Let’s get you to 1 million plus subs.

[@GEOGIRL]

Thanks so much! 1 million sounds like a so many, but it makes me happy that you think I can get there ;D

[@spaceinyourface]

Totally fascinating. I love that little lazer dot you use...Other hosts would benefit from that . Brilliant 👏

[@GEOGIRL]

Thanks so much for the comment and input, so glad you find the laser helpful to follow along! :D

[@jasoncuculo7035]

Could tabulate corals have evolved into a free-swimming form in which they remain in their juvenile form,, then later evolved back into adult coral forms?

[@Get_to_the_Point]

Very interesting, TY. The illustrations were very helpful in understanding. Seeing Patrick at the end made it all clear ! lol

[@GEOGIRL]

Haha! I had to throw Patrick in there ;D

[@Get_to_the_Point]

@@GEOGIRL 😂

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Tommotion in the ocean...his airhose broke! Lots of troubles...lots of bubbles... (with apologies to the B52's)

[@nicholasmaude6906]

If you could go back to the Cambrian, Rachel, you'd have to wear and use a closed-circuit breathing apparatus on the account of low atmospheric oxygen and high atmospheric carbon-dioxide plus you'd likely have to wear SPF50 sunblock due to elevated UV light levels. Plus take a lot food due to there being nothing edible on land and the only food is available in the sea also there are no trees or shrubs on land so little in the way of natural shelter.

[@yzScott]

I have found a bed of Ordovician aquatic plant fossils. (I guess it could be a sponge type animal) I was hiking a former RR track and grabbed a rock from where the tracks had cut through a slate/shale hill. When I looked at it at home, it had a prominent leaf impression on it. When I checked the maps to see what formation I was on, it was upper Ordovician. It seems so unlikely that I would have pull a leaf fossil from rocks of that age, I make a return trip over the weekend to confirm the location and found another sample. It was definitely in the "Ramseyburg Member of Martinsburg Formation" in the Kittatinny Valley Sequence. Anyway... I've been looking for a resource for fossil identification for that period and so far am not finding much. In other news, the Franklin and Stirling Hill zinc mines are only a couple miles from my house. I have a large collection of fluorescent minerals I've collected from their tailing pits. The New Jersey Highlands are pretty incredible place to live from anyone with an interest in Geology. There is more than a billion year span of rocks available in just a few miles of my neighborhood. My house sits on 1.25 billion year old magmatic gneiss.

[@Giganfan2k1]

I am going to need to know where to get that trilobite t shirt.

[@GEOGIRL]

Haha, of course! I got it on amazon actually: amzn.to/3Dzo5bx

[@Giganfan2k1]

@@GEOGIRL Thanks! Just found you channel. I have a backlog :)

[@Beastclub679]

Very nice video and your look also..😇😇🙃🙃👌👌

[@sussekind9717]

I would love to be able to go fishing, in a shallow, Cambrian period sea. You know, just to see what I could catch. It would be the fishing trip of a lifetime, that's for sure. The only question, what bait to use?

[@brucejohnson5786]

use trilobyte as bait

[@Osterbaum]

In regards to archaeocyathids, the reef builders, it seems likely that they were indeed sponges. After all isn't it more likely that sponges, who we know existed before and after the cambrian, are the correct classification. The skeletons of this type and the feeding system after all is really only known to occur in sponges. Anything is possible ofc, especially in the cambrian.

[@GEOGIRL]

I totally agree they seem closest to sponges, but I just love how they've been put in every single box hahaha, they are so cool!

[@Osterbaum]

@@GEOGIRL They are cool! And it's cool to imagine sponge-reefs. The Cambrian really looks so alien from today's perspective.

[@GEOGIRL]

@@Osterbaum Well sponge reefs exist in the modern ocean too! Just in deeper waters than coral reefs :)

[@charlesjmouse]

Very good, thank you. Conodonts - I can't help myself, so apologies for the following: I really don't think the 'classic' reconstruction is correct. They are generally shown as being worm-like 'fishes' with round 'mouths' and big eyes because that seems to be the case based on unimaginative and thoughtless reconstruction of the few poor body fossils. but... 1) Why would such a creature need big eyes? Their 'mouths' make it very clear their prey were very small and not so mobile. Conodonts were much more likely 'detritus hovers' than pursuit predators on the look out for their next meal. 2) A large and complex eye is of no use to a creature that hasn't the complex neurology to process the information provided. There's nothing in the fossils we have to suggest anything even remotely approaching the complexity of say anomalocarid or trilobite 'brains' - the images from compound eyes need a lot less processing than camera eyes to boot! 3) Their 'mouths' and 'teeth' functioned nothing like those of us jawed creatures - think throwing a toothed fishing net out of your mouth to snag food, then drawing it back in to a 'toothed throat'. Imagine the lifestyle of a barnacle or sea pen if they could swim and went for prey big enough to require teeth. So how do we make sense of this? 1) If you look carefully the conodont fossils seem to have much more 'appropriate' paired eye spots just medial to what have been called eyes. 2) I would suggest that a creature that feeds by 'spitting' a 'toothed fishing net' at it's prey might need some kind of 'springs' it can set to achieve such a manoeuvre. With admittedly the eye of faith (these fossils are not well preserved) the structures usually characterised as 'eyes' are in both form and location ideally suited to provide the burst of energy required for such a feeding strategy. Yes, I do have a bee in my bonnet on a rather esoteric subject.

[@GEOGIRL]

Haha, hey I am no conodont expert, so I appreciate your insight on the topic! Thanks for sharing this, I have to say your arguments sound very reasonable to me :)

[@daxxonjabiru428]

Definition of skeletonize transitive verb : to produce in or reduce to skeleton form skeletonize a leaf

[@nicholasmaude6906]

Something that kick-started not only evolution (Or more accurately into high-gear) but evolutionary arms-race was the evloutionary innovation of eyes.

[@TonyQinMc]

I wish I can find more videos about Trilobites, this interesting class of animals survived throughout the entire Paleozoic

[@GEOGIRL]

Have you seen my Trilobite video? kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYiXY52paNmla7c I wish there was more out there on these amazing little guys too! They were so incredible for so long! I'll probably have many more videos about them in the future :)

[@TonyQinMc]

@@GEOGIRL Yep, I've already seen that one, by the way, that one is pretty awesome of you as well

[@TonyQinMc]

@@GEOGIRL that's great! I'm looking forward to see more about them from you!

[@TonyQinMc]

@@GEOGIRL Since I've already learned a lot about the Trilobites lived in Cambrian and Ordovician. As my own preference, I'd love to watch more videos that talk more about Trilobites survived through Devonian, and lived in Carboniferous and Permian, until the Great Dying. It's very interesting to learn anything about these little ones, and the long process of their existence from the dominators of the Earth, eventually became to little pipsqueaks among the ocean lives. Thank you.

[@GoldsmithsStats]

All your videos are excellent, and we should be really glad that you are covering so much content so brilliantly. Thank you Geo Girl! Can I add one small request? It is trivial, but the Ediacaran fauna are pronounced ee-dee-ACK-eran and not ee-dee-ack-CAR-an. That's all. Then you will be perfect.

[@GEOGIRL]

Hahaha that's so funny because I used to pronouce it that way but stopped because I had a prof tell me the way I say it now is better LOL I think everybody probably has their own way I guess 😂 Anyway, thanks so much for the sweet comment and encouragement!

[@GoldsmithsStats]

@@GEOGIRL Ah, that prof! We have all had one in our lives. Well Professor Wikipedia gives the pronounciation as " /iː.diˈæk.ə.rən/ ee-dee-AK-ə-rən ", whatever that means, as it seems to give two options, but I think the penultimate syllable in either version is short (that upside down 'e' thing is called a Schwa, by the way).

[@GEOGIRL]

@@GoldsmithsStats Oh, I know I agree with you that that is the correct way of saying it, I just got used to this other way now haha! Now I am curious how others say it, if I have any other videos in the future where I need to say it I will ask people to comment how they say it hahaha.

[@ashajacob8362]

It's crazy that living organisms were so much bigger and were Giants back then!

[@GEOGIRL]

Well, yes and no, I mean 2 meters is much smaller than the largest sea creatures we have today. Actually the largest animal to ever exist lives today! It is the Blue whale! :D So cool right!! But I will say that you are right in terms of invertebrates being so large in the Paleozoic Era, while they are mostly small creatures today :)

[@oker59]

this was a Formula 1 weekend; so, I had to wake up early to watch that. I watch them half asleep, and I've watched this half asleep. Hopefully I watch this when awake. . . . before the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope first pictures reveal!

[@GEOGIRL]

OMG yes, the Webb images have been so amazing!!

[@oker59]

@@GEOGIRL As my father said, when he saw one picture "that's infrared; it's heat."

[@isaacfraser4082]

I love learning about this stuff more then you know Endoceras giganteum these guys I'm still trying to rap my head around there Size like they were behemoth sized it makes me sad thinking about them dying seeing the sea level go down so much that you would be able to see them in exposed land that was water i wish i could have seen that even tho it would break my heart but it would be cool to see them. its amazing the earth can produce these things like that but sad we could never coe exist like jaws were just becoming a thing when they were around how would they have eating us suck

[@robbie_]

I cannot go back and see a Sarcosuchus (from a distance) or a Diplodocus or an Ordovician placoderm. Or one of those giant arthropleura. I can't witness the K-Pg asteroid impact (I so want to see that). It's all so frustrating.

[@Bluemax54]

She got excited about the hard parts.

[@platzhirsch4275]

scientists have attributed the eyes of a trilobite to be, "the greatest living lens. The trilobites' eyes were different than most creatures' eyes because they were composed of materials that could be studied even after being fossilized. Most creatures' eyes dissolve after death: tilobites eyes did not. When scientists began studying these eyes, they were amazed at what they found. Humans have only one lens in each eye. But trilobites had two lenses in each of their many eyes. In order to see clearly under water, it was necessary for them to have this "double lens" in each eye. If their eyes did not have two lenses, things would probably have appeared distorted. The scientists discovered that the lenses were so perfect that there would have been no distortion at all. Their eyes were so perfect that they looked as if they had been ---designed! Since trilobites are considered to have been one of the first creatures to evolve, it would make sense (from an evolutionary point of view) to suggest that they possessed fairly primitive features. Yet the eye of the trilobite is anything but primitive! How could this "perfect eye" be found in an "early" animal like trilobite? And how could it have been so well designed?

[@danielwatson4864]

Those shrimp are pretty big. They probably grow even bigger on a planet like Neptune. Maybe, giant snow crab on Uranus..?..

[@edgeofsanity9111]

Middle Cambrian... Which epoch is that? The Cambrian has 4 of them

[@johntorrington2672]

It hurts my feelings to hear you say trilobites were not a good evolved design. Trilobites need love❤

[@nicholasmaude6906]

Here's a spoof of Neil diamond's hit song "Sweet Caroline" with a paleontological twist which I think you'll enjoy - kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3e8o2h9pJd5pas

[@GEOGIRL]

OMG, that made my day! haha thank you for sharing that ;D

[@nicholasmaude6906]

@@GEOGIRL I thought you'd like it😀.

[@nicholasmaude6906]

@@GEOGIRL Share with your biologist and palaeontologist friends, Rachel, I'm sure they'll enjoy it too. I'd love to see Neil Diamond sing this or Weird Al Yankovic do a "Sweet Cambrian" video.

[@mishkosimonovski23]

Support comment for the channel

[@GEOGIRL]

Thanks! ;)

[@princeshukla7661]

Love from INDIA

[@JoesFirewoodVideos]

Size matters. I ❤️ GEO GIRL.

[@bibia666]

Tommotian 🤔Mmmmm... 🤷‍♂️😅Sounds just as funny as literally EVERYTHING ELSE from that period, 😂 the fact that you made a (tiny little) deal about it totally confused me🤣.... LOL funny as f..., confusion = (well, listen to sonic youth and you'll know what I meant 😉😅.., or not it's no "biggie", as long as you remember the basics and even if you occasionally forget it ain't nooooo problems (I do it all the times..., LOL) GREETINGS bibia, I gave a like btw..., your content is okay I love animation(s), graphics and graph(s) maybe could use more of those (because I don't care how the lecture looks like (even good looking ones😘(☺️sorry I don't want to be sexist but truth = truth.., and it's about the message not the messenger, too many people on the tube forget that fact, so I'm happy you gave presidency to the information instead of yourself 👍)) Thanks (again) for the excellent video!

[@TheFutureTutor]

Hey Geogirl how to contact you personally?

[@GEOGIRL]

Honestly, the best place to get a response is in my youtube comments. I have an email listed on my KZbin channel page in the about tab, but I have a harder time keeping up with those, so just comment whatever you'd like to ask :D Or if you'd rather it be private, try emailing that email listed on my about page ;)

[@TheFutureTutor]

Okay

[@chrissimpson1183]

I have a bumper sticker that says Anomalocaris is my co pilot....

[@annoyed707]

Look at Anticosti Island and the end Ordovician mass extinction.

[@Beastclub679]

Hii geo girl.. how are you?🙃🙃

[@nibiruresearch]

Those data in mya are part of the relative geological time scale. But in all cases it is presented as the real date. The biggest misunderstanding about our past is that history does not follow a gradual path. So it's not possible to explain millions of years of history when you do not know about the cycle of natural disasters that is affecting the earth and its inhabitants in a severe way. One of the effects of these disasters is that a large part of the earth is covered with a wet mud layer and the northern part is covered with ice. That cycle is mentioned in several ancient books as the Mahabharata from India and the Popol Vuh from the Maya. Such a cycle can only be caused by a celestial body that is approaching the sun and its planets with long time intervals. We now know this planet as planet 9. Countless names are used worldwide to name this planet and the disasters that are battering the planet Earth. Noah's Flood is one of them. Quetzalcoatl, Shiva or Nibiru are others. As an effect of these recurring disasters, civilizations come and go in a fixed schedule. A previous highly advanced civilization built the great pyramid to tell us they existed. To learn much more about the cycle of recurring floods, the recreation of civilizations and its timeline and ancient high technology, read the eBook: "Planet 9 = Nibiru". You can read it on every computer, tablet or smartphone. Search: invisible nibiru 9

[@tedetienne7639]

Sorry, Tommotian fauna! THIRD time’s the charm!

[@GEOGIRL]

Those poor Tommotians, at least they got to leave their mark before going extinct!

[@peterkavanagh64]

Taxes? The demise if dinosaurs. Internetbwascthere in the old seas 🌊 👌 😍

[@jasoncuculo7035]

Looks like a fossilized Planaria!

[@ourtinytale7520]

What is interesting is that according to quantum mechanics, alternative universes and therefore climates exist. So the Cambrian experiment does produce in reality all alternative evolutionary survivors.

[@reidflemingworldstoughestm1394]

If you go back in time 500 million years ya better pack a lunch.

[@darrellwestrick2110]

A brief reef hiatus? Lol

[@thaq8.2]

Bigger than the neurons to your cortex

[@gregorymcfarlane6879]

You’re awesome can I love you?

[@princeshukla7661]

Hello geo girl

[@Tadesan]

An attractive woman will be successful doing anything. Congrats.