Article
Geology
Bryce B. Barney, Ethan L. Grossman
Summary: The study indicates that the Late Ordovician climate in the Cincinnati Arch was warmer than modern subtropical seas, likely influenced by the upwelling of cool water. Though previous studies have reported higher temperatures, correcting for reordering effects did not significantly change the overall findings.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Yilong Liu, Ruoying Fan, Ruiwen Zong, Yiming Gong
Summary: The 'Ordovician Plankton Revolution' played a crucial role in the rapid diversification of marine organisms during the Middle Ordovician. Caryocaridids, a group of important planktonic arthropods in the Ordovician, provide important information for studying the 'Ordovician Plankton Revolution' and the evolution of pelagic food webs. Our research on caryocaridids revealed their taxonomic position, evolutionary path, biological migration process, and paleoecological and paleogeographical setting. The study shows that caryocaridids were a clade of planktonic arthropods that evolved from late Cambrian phyllocarids, rapidly diversified in the Floian to Darriwilian, and declined in the Late Ordovician before going extinct at the end of the Ordovician. The emergence and diversification of planktonic caryocaridids provide new evidence for the complexity of Ordovician pelagic food webs and the occurrence of the 'Ordovician Plankton Revolution'.
EARTH-SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2022)
Review
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Xiang-dong Wang, Ke-Yi Hu, Yu-Kun Shi, Ji-Tao Chen, Sun-Rong Yang, Xun-Yan Ye, Xiao-Ming Li, Ying-Fan Song, Bo Chen, Xiao-Lin Chang, Le Yao, Yi-Chun Zhang, Jun-Xuan Fan, Shu-Zhong Shen
Summary: The Cimmerian continent is made up of blocks that were attached to Gondwana in different time periods, developing glacial sediments during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age. These blocks present a combination of warm and cool water sediments, lacking upper Carboniferous sediments and showing similarities to Australia and India/Pakistan. Additionally, they are characterized by the absence of upper Carboniferous sediments, making them significantly different from South China and other Tethyan regions.
EARTH-SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2021)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
L. Robin M. Cocks, Leonid E. Popov
Summary: During the Early Ordovician Epoch, the Mediterranean brachiopod Province was extensive in the higher-latitude sectors of the globe in the Southern Hemisphere. The province can be separated into two groups, each dominated by different brachiopod fauna, with distinct distributions in different geographical regions. Additionally, the province merges with more diverse contemporary faunas in lower latitudes and experienced significant radiation of various brachiopod taxa during the period.
GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
(2021)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Yong Yi Zhen, Ian G. Percival, Phil Gilmore, Jodie Rutledge, Liann Deyssing
Summary: A rich diversity of Ordovician conodonts were discovered in the Lachlan Orogen in Australia, leading to the establishment of a new biozonal scheme that allows for precise age-dating and correlation of deep-water siliciclastic rocks regionally and internationally.
JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Geography, Physical
Ceara K. Q. Purcell, Alycia L. Stigall
Summary: This study examined the ecological niche dynamics and stability of eastern Laurentian brachiopod genera during the Late Ordovician Epoch. The results showed significant variations in niche expansion and stability of brachiopod genera across different time intervals.
PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Geography, Physical
Xiaolin Chang, Mingcai Hou, He Shi, Hu Wang, Jiankang Lai, Hua Zhang
Summary: The study of epibionts and hosts in the marine hard-substrate communities in the Longmenshan region of South China revealed that the encrustation patterns on brachiopods are influenced by host shell morphology and ecological environments, with certain epibionts showing selective preferences for specific host taxa. The abundance and distribution of epibionts varied across different stages of the Middle-Late Devonian, and changes in encrustation from dorsal to ventral valves of host brachiopods were found to be related to shifts in host taxa rather than ecological environments. Overall, there was no significant change in epibiont abundance, diversity, or relationships between hosts and epibionts around the Frasnian/Famennian boundary interval, indicating long-term ecological damage during the Frasnian rather than dramatic environmental changes.
PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Rodrigo A. Otero
Summary: This contribution presents novel records of ray-finned fishes from the Oxfordian of Cerritos Bayos, northern Chile, including new diversity of Pachycormiformes and the first Upper Jurassic local record of a Lepisosteidae. These new records expand the known actinopterygian diversity from the Upper Jurassic of southeastern Panthalassa.
Article
Geography, Physical
Mark W. Hounslow, Samuel E. Harris, Krystian Wojcik, Jerzy Nawrocki, Kenneth T. Ratcliffe, Nigel H. Woodcock, Paul Montgomery
Summary: Magnetostratigraphic studies of the Ordovician provide evidence for the nature of core-mantle boundary interactions, and the new data contribute to a near-complete magnetic polarity chronostratigraphic scale through the Middle and Upper Ordovician. The magnetic signal is carried by both haematite and magnetite, with correlations between lithologies and local magnetic susceptibility, providing validation of a primary palaeomagnetic signal. The reversal frequencies for the mid and late Ordovician are estimated to be 1.7 and 1.5 Myr (-1) respectively.
PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Plant Sciences
Claudia Rubinstein, Maria C. Vargas, Felipe de la Parra, Gareth M. G. Hughes
Summary: The study reveals diverse and well-preserved palynomorph assemblages in the Ordovician rocks of the Llanos Basin in Colombia. Four distinct assemblages were identified, with clear affinities to the Perigondwana acritarch Province and presence of taxa with South Chinese and Baltic affinities. The cosmopolitanism of Ordovician phytoplankton is supported, with significant diversity changes observed from Middle to Late Ordovician assemblages.
REVIEW OF PALAEOBOTANY AND PALYNOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Geography, Physical
Sara B. Pruss, Lucy Helms, Emma Roth
Summary: This study examines the Late Ordovician coral reefs of the Lourdes Formation in western Newfoundland. It reveals that reef environments have higher skeletal abundance than adjacent settings, and the abundance of skeletal animals is influenced by specific environmental conditions such as supersaturation of CaCO3, wave activity, and warm temperatures. This highlights the importance of reefs as suitable habitats for skeletal organisms during the Early Paleozoic.
PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Geology
Rodrigo A. Otero
Summary: This research describes an isolated terminal caudal centrum of a mosasaur found in central Chile, which belongs to the Mosasaurinae and extends the local mosasaur diversity previously composed of tylosaurines and halisaurines. It also confirms the widespread distribution of mosasaurines in the Weddellian region prior to the K/Pg event.
CRETACEOUS RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Xueying Ma, James Ogg, Yuanzheng Lu, Ru Fan, Chunju Huang, Zhong Luo, Shenghui Deng
Summary: This study surveyed and sampled the Upper Ordovician sections on the Upper Yangtze Platform, and identified a positive 813C excursion, the Pagoda Positive 813C Excursion (PPCE), through geochemo-bio-cyclostratigraphy evidences. Spectral analysis of high-resolution magnetic susceptibility logs showed consistent wavelengths, and the duration of the PPCE event was determined to be 3.7 to 4.4 million years. This is the first documentation of the PPCE event on the Upper Yangtze Platform, revising the previous description.
JOURNAL OF ASIAN EARTH SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Mansoureh Ghobadi Pour, Leonid E. Popov, J. Javier Alvaro, Arash Amini, Vachik Hairapetian, Hadi Jahangir
Summary: The litho-and biostratigraphic framework of the Alborz, Kopet-Dagh, and the East-Central Iranian blocks during the Ordovician period is outlined and updated in this study. The study identifies four tectono-stratigraphic units in northern Iran, each with varying lithology, facies, fossil record, and sedimentary record completeness. The Ordovician strata in the eastern Alborz and Kopet-Dagh Mountains are characterized by rifting volcanism within an active horst-and-graben palaeotopography. Biogeographical affinities with South China and the Mediterranean peri-Gondwana are noted, with zircon populations suggesting continental sources from the Arabian-Nubian Shield of the western Arabian Peninsula and northeastern Africa.
BULLETIN OF GEOSCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Geography, Physical
Ruo-ying Fan, Rui-wen Zong, Yi-ming Gong
Summary: Trace fossils provide unique evidence of the body plan and behavioral complexity of animals, with a diverse ichnoassemblage discovered from deep-marine deposits in Inner Mongolia, North China during the Middle-Upper Ordovician period. The complex trace fossils suggest distinct behavioral complication and novelty in deep-sea communities during this time, possibly reflecting an evolution towards more delicate, geometric, and efficient feeding patterns. The Late Ordovician period may represent a peak in ichnodiversity and behavioral complexity of deep-sea ichnofauna, reflecting the complex interplay of biodiversity, biomass, and ecological changes during this time.
PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY
(2021)
