http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Crobar/6217 That's right folks, sometime during the Ediacaran period a diversification is evident in the fossil record.  This is reported in a new article in the journal Science by Shen et al. (2008)*.  The event the authors are calling the "Avalon Explosion" closely mirrors the later Cambrian explosion, being "a rapid evolution of body plans followed by taxonomic diversification within the limits of a predefined morphospace (pp. 84)". This finding is important as it suggests "that the decoupling of taxonomic and morphological evolution is not unique to the Cambrian explosion (pp. 84)".  This shows that other events of rapid diversification have taken place.  The authors do not delve into the possible causative agents for the "explosion" but they do suggest it as a definite avenue for further research. *Article:  Shen, B., Dong, L., Xiao, S., and Kowaleswski, M. (2008).  The Avalon explosion: Evolution of Ediacara morphospace.  Science, 319, 81-84. That's right folks, sometime during the Ediacaran period a diversification is evident in the fossil record.  This is reported in a new article in the journal Science by Shen et al. (2008)*.  The event the authors are calling the "Avalon Explosion" closely mirrors the later Cambrian explosion, being "a rapid evolution of body plans followed by taxonomic diversification within the limits of a predefined morphospace (pp. 84)". This finding is important as it suggests "that the decoupling of taxonomic and morphological evolution is not unique to the Cambrian explosion (pp. 84)".  This shows that other events of rapid diversification have taken place.  The authors do not delve into the possible causative agents for the "explosion" but they do suggest it as a definite avenue for further research. *Article:  Shen, B., Dong, L., Xiao, S., and Kowaleswski, M. (2008).  The Avalon explosion: Evolution of Ediacara morphospace.  Science, 319, 81-84. en-us