An extremely brief end Ordovician mass extinction linked to abrupt onset of glaciation

Ming-Xing Ling; Ren-Bin Zhan; Guang-Xu Wang; Yi Wang; Yuri Amelin; Peng Tang; Jian-Bo Liu; Jisuo Jin; Bing Huang; Rong-Chang Wu; Shuo Xue; Bin Fu; Vickie C. Bennett; Xin Wei; Xiao-Cong Luan; Seth Finnegan; David A.T. Harper; Jia-Yu Rong

Solid Earth Sciences (Dec 2019)

An extremely brief end Ordovician mass extinction linked to abrupt onset of glaciation

Ming-Xing Ling,
Ren-Bin Zhan,
Guang-Xu Wang,
Yi Wang,
Yuri Amelin,
Peng Tang,
Jian-Bo Liu,
Jisuo Jin,
Bing Huang,
Rong-Chang Wu,
Shuo Xue,
Bin Fu,
Vickie C. Bennett,
Xin Wei,
Xiao-Cong Luan,
Seth Finnegan,
David A.T. Harper,
Jia-Yu Rong

Affiliations

Ming-Xing Ling: State Key Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China; Corresponding author.
Ren-Bin Zhan: State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China; Corresponding author. State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China.
Guang-Xu Wang: State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China
Yi Wang: State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China
Yuri Amelin: Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
Peng Tang: State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China
Jian-Bo Liu: School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Jisuo Jin: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada
Bing Huang: State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China
Rong-Chang Wu: State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China
Shuo Xue: State Key Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China
Bin Fu: Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
Vickie C. Bennett: Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
Xin Wei: State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China
Xiao-Cong Luan: State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China
Seth Finnegan: Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
David A.T. Harper: Palaeoecosystems Group, Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
Jia-Yu Rong: State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China

Journal volume & issue: Vol. 4, no. 4
pp. 190 – 198

Abstract

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The end Ordovician mass extinction (EOME) was the second most severe biotic crisis in Phanerozoic, and has been widely linked to a major glaciation. However, robust geochronology of this interval is still lacking. Here we present four successive high-precision zircon U–Pb dates by isotope dilution thermal ionization mass spectrometry (ID-TIMS) for biostratigraphically well-constrained K-bentonites of a continuous Ordovician-Silurian boundary section at Wanhe, SW China. They include 444.65 ± 0.22 Ma (middle Dicellograptus complexus Biozone), 444.06 ± 0.20 Ma (lower Paraorthograptus pacificus Biozone), 443.81 ± 0.24 Ma (upper Tangyagraptus typicus Subzone), and 442.99 ± 0.17 Ma (upper Metabolograptus extraordinarius Biozone). Calculations based on sedimentation rates suggest a duration of 0.47 ± 0.34 Ma for the Hirnantian Stage, which is much shorter than previously thought (1.4 ± 2.05 Ma in the International Chronostratigraphic Chart ver. 2019/05). The new data also constrain the Hirnantian glacial maximum to ∼0.2 Ma, supporting that its brevity and intensity probably triggered the EOME. Keywords: ID-TIMS, K-bentonite, End Ordovician mass extinction (EOME), Hirnantian stage

Published in Solid Earth Sciences

ISSN: 2451-912X (Online)
Publisher: Elsevier
Country of publisher: Netherlands
LCC subjects: Science: Geology
Website: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/solid-earth-sciences/

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