Introduction Many hypotheses have been used to explain the rapid expansion of animal species in the early Cambrian period, from about 541.0 million to about 485.4 million years ago. Most modern explanations for the Cambrian explosion take pieces of many of these hypotheses and blend them together; incorporating genetic, ecological and abiotic conditions that set the evolutionary wheel in motion. The current state of understanding the Cambrian explosion still remains a topic of open and exciting debate. The processes in the hypotheses can be autonomous or closely interconnected and mutually supporting. It can be said that the complexity of modern Animalia can be attributed to the complexity of processes that occurred during the rapid diversification attributed by an interaction of biotic and abiotic processes in the Cambrian period. Evolution unmasked? The Cambrian explosion refers to the rapid diversification of new forms of animals that emerged in the fossil record over about 20 million years. This may not seem like the shortest amount of time, but in an evolutionary sense it was lightning fast. Some of the earliest fossils are unusually intact and very well preserved. Two of the most famous locations of Cambrian fossil discoveries are the Burgess Shale discovered by Charles Walcott on August 30, 1909 in Canada and the Maotianshan Shales in Chengijang, China. The Cambrian explosion is difficult for biologists to interpret because it poses a problem that appears to be inconsistent with the gradual pace of evolutionary change. Even though there is this big difference compared to the “normal” evolutionary model, that doesn't mean it can't happen. There was a... means of paper... that descendants of a small number of individuals would result, giving rise to the founder effect. Furthermore, the relatedness between any two individuals would have been very high. Using Hamilton's rule, the equation: R>C/B can be explained as altruism increases when relatedness (R) exceeds the ratio of the cost (C) to the individual to the benefit (B) of the recipient of altruism. Evolutionary pressures due to high relatedness in relation to a population thriving after a glacial event could have been sufficient to overcome the reproductive cost of forming more complex and diverse animals. There are other hypotheses, even some that contradict the idea expressed above, stating that the first snowball Earths did not influence the evolution of life on Earth as much as it resulted; this brings up the old argument: “what came first, the chicken or the egg”.?“.