Abstract

There is widespread evidence of a major transgression near the base of the Cambrian. It is difficult to establish time-controls, and therefore difficult to produce worthwhile estimates of rate of transgression. Neither the palaeontological nor the radiometric information is sufficiently exact.

Alternative means of comparing the Cambrian transgression with later events of the same kind are sought; the possibility that it is due to post-glacial (i.e. post-Varangian) rise of sea level is examined and rejected; the separation in time seems too large. The preferred explanation is that the Cambrian transgression had tectonic causes and it is argued that among the major transgressions of later geological time, it is the Cretaceous case which most closely resembles the Cambrian.