Furongian Epoch

Furongian is an epoch that occurs after Series 3 (Cambian), and before the Tremadocian (Early Ordovician).

What happened during this time?

Seafloor substrate was beginning to change
Algal mats penetrated the interstices between sediment particles, fixing and stiffening the sea bottom.
By the late Cambrian, metazoans had affected this mat. Some parts beginning to resemble the loose, muddy and unconsolidated sea floor.
Rate of weathering on land also increased
Larger, superficially more advanced trilobites of the Middle Cambrian disappeared in this new, muddier world.
By contrast, the tiny agnostids trilobites were well equipped to dig into -- and out of -- the loosened substrate
There is currently no direct evidence for land plants
- Paleobiodiversity curves indicate that the Cambrian Explosion and the Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event (GOBE) are either two clearly distinguishable ‘events,’ or that they both belong to a single, continuous radiation (e.g., Alroy et al., 2008)
- The late Cambrian ‘Furongian Gap,’ that is visible between the Cambrian Explosion and the GOBE, is possibly only due to a sampling artifact, because upper Cambrian sediments are relatively rare and paleontological investigations on this interval, sporadic (Harper et al., 2019).