Abstract
Over the last decade, palaeontologists around the world have been striving to understand one of the most remarkable episodes in the fossil record: the explosive evolution of skeletal fossils around the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary. When examined in the field, the close association of geological and biological events is apparent. An important succession in this respect is the classic Precambrian and Cambrian area of Charnwood–Nuneaton in the English Midlands. Here it can be seen that the boundary also spans a time of major tectonic and oceanographic changes. Could these have contributed to the ‘Cambrian evolutionary explosion’?