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

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

Abstract

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.

Citation

Ling, M., Zhan, R., Wang, G., Wang, Y., Amelin, Y., Tang, P., …Rong, J. (2019). An extremely brief end Ordovician mass extinction linked to abrupt onset of glaciation. Solid earth sciences, 4(4), 190-198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sesci.2019.11.001

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 10, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Dec 9, 2019
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2019
• Deposit Date: Dec 12, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 9, 2020
• Journal: Solid Earth Sciences.
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 190-198
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sesci.2019.11.001