The Ediacarans vanish
The world's first complex ecosystem disappears just before the Cambrian begins.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 11 million years
- Known to
- ± 5 million years
- Era
- Neoproterozoic, Proterozoic
Through the last few million years of the Ediacaran the characteristic frond and disc organisms decline and then disappear, in what may be the first mass extinction of complex life. Explanations include the spread of burrowing animals destroying microbial mat habitats, a drop in ocean oxygen, and simple ecological displacement by newly evolved competitors. Whatever the cause, the seafloor was largely cleared before the Cambrian filled it again.