Photo by Brad Armstrong.

The NHK (Japan Broadcasting Organization) film crew recently interviewed Geology Professor Paul Myrow about the Great Unconformity, a geological feature that is well exposed in parts of the Colorado Springs area. The film crew was interested in how the development of the unconformity might relate to the radical burst of evolution of organisms during the Cambrian Period. Immediately prior to the Cambrian Period, there was the development of multi-cellular animals, and during the initial part of the Cambrian, a wide variety of organisms developed the ability to produce shells.

Myrow has worked on Cambrian rocks and looked at the unconformity in outcrops spanning from Montana to Texas for the last 20 years. He has published papers that relate to the Cambrian world, including evolution of life at the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary.