Sara Pruss on the First Reef Builders

Geology Bites By Oliver Strimpel by Oliver Strimpel

Feb 11, 202600:23:21Science & Medicine

The first multicellular animals to build reefs lived in the Early Cambrian around the time of the Cambrian explosion. They were sponges called archaeocyaths. In the podcast, Sara Pruss suggests that the rise of the archa...

Related Episodes

Continue listening to more episodes from Geology Bites By Oliver Strimpel.

Brian Wernicke on Lithospheric Extension and the Basin and Range Province

Aug 27, 2026 - 00:34:07

Where tectonic plates collide, the result is clear: the edge of a plate crumples and throws up a mountain...

Bernhard Steinberger on Whether Hotspots Are Fixed

Jul 16, 2026 - 00:28:56

Volcanic island chains like Hawaii record the passage of a plate over a hotspot — a plume of hot rock ris...

Sonia Tikoo on the Moon's Magnetic Field

Jun 27, 2026 - 00:32:35

We have known for decades that the Moon once generated a strong magnetic field — comparable in strength t...

Steve Brusatte on the Dinosaurs That Survived the Asteroid

May 28, 2026 - 00:32:41

Birds are the only dinosaurs that survived the asteroid impact 66 million years ago — but not all birds d...

Alec Brenner on When Tectonic Plates First Moved

Apr 30, 2026 - 00:28:55

A key development in the history of the early Earth is the formation of lithospheric plates that move ind...

Materials in Extreme Environments

Apr 15, 2026 - 00:35:41

Most of the material in the Earth and other planets exists under extremes of pressure and temperature qui...

Esther Sumner on Turbidity Currents

Mar 26, 2026 - 00:31:00

Though turbidity currents are massive and frequent underwater events, we have rarely observed them direct...

Hal Levison on the Mission to Jupiter's Trojan Asteroids

Mar 6, 2026 - 00:37:27

A key question about the early history of the Solar System is whether the giant planets formed roughly at...