The Cambrian explosion is a grand challenge to science today and involves multidisciplinary study. This event is generally believed as a result of genetic innovations, environmental factors and ecological interactions, even though there are many conflicts on nature and timing of metazoan origins. The crux of the matter is that an entire roadmap of the evolution is missing to discern the biologi...

A well-preserved Cambrian section in the Zanskar Valley of northern India has previously been interpreted to record the transition from a passive to an active tectonic margin related to Cambrian–Ordovician orogenesis. This interpretation has been used to support the tectonostratigraphic interpretation of other successions across the Tethyan Himalaya. Our detailed paleoenvironmental analysis sig...

The study area is a part of the Sanandaj-Sirjan metamorphic belt comprising lowto high-grade regional and contact metamorphic rocks that are intruded by various plutonic bodies. Garnet crystals are abundant in pelitic schists, amphibole schists, migmatites, hornfelses and aplites. They are mostly almandinerich (XAlm>60) pyralspite garnets and show dodecahedron, trapezohedron and mixed (dodecahe...

A garnetite that occurs locally in phyllitic schists exposed by the Santorini caldera consists mainly of euhedral garnet crystals showing alternating isotropic and birefringent lamellae. X-ray diffraction revealed two garnets with unit cell dimensions a of I2.o52:ko-oo2 and I~'984-ko-oo5 A, corresponding respectively to almost pure andradite and a granditic phase. Mean compositions determined b...