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545 BCE
Cambrian period
The Cambrian is famed for its explosion of abundant and diverse life forms. Life had diversified into many forms and many ways of living: animals now swam, crawled, burrowed, hunted, defended themselves and hid away. Some creatures had evolved hard parts such as shells, which readily fossilised and left a clear record behind. However, sometimes geologists get lucky and find beautiful fossils of soft and squishy creatures - as at the Burgess Shale site.
