Did Cooling Oceans Trigger Ordovician Biodiversification? Evidence from Conodont Thermometry
Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2008 papers
Abstract
The Ordovician Period, long considered a supergreenhouse state, saw one of the greatest radiations of life in Earth's history. Previous temperature estimates of up to approximately 70 degrees C have spawned controversial speculation that the oxygen isotopic composition of seawater must have evolved over geological time. We present a very different global climate record determined by ion microprobe oxygen isotope analyses of Early Ordovician-Silurian conodonts. This record shows a steady cooling trend through the Early Ordovician reaching modern equatorial temperatures that were sustained throughout the Middle and Late Ordovician. This favorable climate regime implies not only that the oxygen isotopic composition of Ordovician seawater was similar to that of today, but also that climate played an overarching role in promoting the unprecedented increases in biodiversity that characterized this period.
Related Papers
- → Ordovician chitinozoan zones from Baltoscandia(1993)178 cited
- → Conodonts in Ordovician biostratigraphy(2016)48 cited
- Late Cambrian and Early Ordovician Conodonts from the Kulumbe River Section, Northwest Siberian Platform(2009)
- ORDOVICIAN CONODONT DIVERSIFICATION OF YICHANG, HUBEI PROVINCE(2007)
- DISCUSSION ON THE AGE OF THE ORDOVICIAN YINGSHAN FORMATION IN TARIM BLOCK(2013)