Yes, you had heard all the praises of this strange planet, but there still seemed to be a tiny little detail everyone was glossing over--it takes a heck of a lot more than a little trilobite to send thousands of people packing. Walking through the ghostly city by the shore you came upon government files left unlocked, empty homes and vacant businesses. These people had left homes, factories, businesses behind--and despite all their reassurances the investigative team still didn’t know exactly what had made those early colonists leave. You have until tomorrow to figure out what happened on this planet and convince the re-colonization committee that P-L5 is better left alone.
Leads and Sources
Magazines and Articles:
"When Life Exploded," J. Madeleine Nash. Cover Story Time Magazine December 4, 1995.
"On Embryos and Ancestors," Stephen Jay Gould. Natural History 7/98-8/98, p. 20.
"The Evolution of Life on the Earth," Stephen Jay Gould. Scientific American October 1994, p. 85.
"Breathing Room for Early Animals" (Oxygen), Andrew H. Knoll. Nature Vol. 382, July 11, 1996, p. 111.
"The Big Bang of Animal Evolution," Jeffrey Levinton. Scientific American November 1992.
"Hypersea," Dianna and Mark McMenamin. Discover October 1995, p. 76.
"The Emergence of Animals," Mark McMenamin, Scientific American April 1987, p. 94.
"Life’s Grand Explosions." (theories on why the Cambrian explosion occurred), Lori Oliwenstein. Discover January 1996, p. 42.
"The Molecular Explosion," Henry Gee. Nature Vol. 373, February 16,1995, p. 558.
Internet Sites:
The Divisions of Precambrian Time
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/precambrian/precambrian.htmlLife of the Vendian
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vendian/vendianlife.htmlLearning About the Vendian Animals
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vendian/critters.htmlOxygen Pulse and the Evolutionary Expansion of the Metazoans
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/8200/Oxygenation.htmlCambrian Explosion
http://www.carleton.ca/Museum/camex/1ahome.html
Books:
The Emergence of Animals: The Cambrian Breakthrough. Mark and Dianna McMenamin, 1990, Columbia University Press.
Biology: The Science of Life. Wallace, Sanders and Ferl, 4th ed., 1996, Addison-Wesley.