Huayuan biota decodes Earth's first mass extinction https://phys.org/news/2026-01-huayuan-biota-decodes-earth-phanerozoic.html
"#CambrianExplosion was cut short around 513 million years ago by the #SinskEvent—with an #extinction rate on par with the planet's 5 most severe mass extinctions. #Biodiversity remained low for 50 million years... While paleontologists have uncovered dozens of #Cambrian soft-bodied fossil sites... no equivalent deposit had been found from the critical post-Sinsk Event interval... That changed over the past 5 years"
Shadows of 512 million years ago: "A Cambrian soft-bodied biota after the first Phanerozoic mass extinction", Zeng et al. 2026
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10030-0
Code and datasets: https://www.scidb.cn/en/detail?dataSetId=0e04cad6d88b4fbc843031cc650212e0
#evolution #EdiacaranFauna #Cambrian #SinskEvent #MassExtinction

The Huayuan biota exhibits extraordinary biodiversity, illuminating the impact of the Phanerozoic mass extinction around 513 million years ago and offering critical insights into the transformation of global ecosystems in the early Cambrian.