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Why did Adam Sedgwick name the Cambrian System after Wales?
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Cambrian Period
Distribution of landmasses, mountainous regions, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins during the late Cambrian Period. Included in the paleogeographic reconstruction are the locations of the interval's subduction zones.
The English geologist Adam Sedgwick named the Cambrian System in 1835 after studying successions of slaty rocks in northern and southern Wales and southwestern England.12
He chose the name "Cambrian" because it is derived from Cambria, the ancient Latin name for Wales. This term itself originates from Cymry, the Welsh word for the Welsh people. Sedgwick applied this name to the oldest fossiliferous strata he identified during his fieldwork in the region, which at the time contained the earliest known record of abundant and varied life-forms.123