Environmental upheavals of the Ediacaran period and the Cambrian “explosion” of animal life

The second half of the Ediacaran period began with a large impact - the Acraman impact in South Australia, which was accompanied by a negative δ^13Ccarb anomaly and an extinction-radiation event involving acritarchs. A few million years later （-570 Ma？） there was a second, deeper and longer-lived world-wide δ^13Ccarb anomaly （the Shuram anomaly） which coincides with extinction of the acanthomorphic acritarchs. Wide distribution of the Shuram event is exemplified by stratigraphic sections from South Australia, Oman, southern California and South China. The widespread anomaly has been tentatively attributed to a marine impact. During recovery from the Shuram event the enigmatic Ediacaran biota achieved its zenith, only to be extirpated and replaced by a polyphyletic assemblage of shelly animals in what is known as the Cambrian ＂explosion＂. This extinction-radiation cycle was preceded by glaciation, another δ^13Ccarb excursion and the highest ^87Sr/^86Sr values known from marine carbonates. These high Sr ratios have been linked to weathering of extensive tracts of continental crust that were elevated during amalgamation of the supercontinent Gondwana. Introduction of essential nutrients to the oceans would have promoted biological production of oxygen and provided P and Ca for the important skeletonization that characterizes the Cambrian ＂explosion＂ and caused a quantum leap in the preservation potential of animal remains. Turbulent events of the last 50 million years of Precambrian time include three glaciations, two large impacts and a massive orogenic episode. These dramatic environmental upheavals are held responsible for three consecutive extinction-radiation cycles that culminated in the appearance of a diverse array of shelly fossils. Various lines of evidence suggest that the metazoans have deep roots so that they too may have been subjected to the environmental pressures of the late Ediacaran period clearly illustrated by acritarchs and the Ediacaran biota but the long-lived diversity of the metazoan population was ＂suddenly＂ revealed by the acquisition of biomineralization.

A special numerical method for fluid-structure interaction problems subjected to explosion and impact loading

A three-dimensional(3D) embedded Eulerian-Lagrangian method is proposed to simulate the 3D fluid-structure interaction(FSI) problems subjected to explosion and impact loading. This method achieves a high-quality calculation of fluid and structure deformation by adding Lagrangian particles to Eulerian grids. The overall computational domain is solved by the Eulerian method, and the Lagrangian particles with specified volume and influence domains are used to track structural deformations. The bidirectional mapping of physical quantities is achieved using the weighted average of the influence domain, which are based on the topological relationship between Eulerian grids and Lagrangian particles. Then, the data dependence solution and parallel algorithm realization are presented for the large-scale numerical calculations of explosion and impact problems. Additionally, the corresponding parallel program is developed based on the message passing interface(MPI) standard, and the parallel efficiency of parallel hydrocode are tested. The numerical results of typical explosion and impact problems are compared with corresponding experimental data to verify the effectiveness of the method. These comparisons show that the embedded EulerianLagrangian method successfully combine the advantages of both the Eulerian and Lagrangian methods to efficiently calculate the processes of large deformation and dynamic damage to the materials. The results presented in this work provide a useful reference point for further research on explosion and impact problems.