The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE): definition, concept and duration

Servais, Thomas; Harper, David A.T.

Abstract

The Ordovician biodiversification has been recognized since the 1960s; the term ‘The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event’, abbreviated by many as the ‘GOBE’, has been used for the past 20 years. The conceptual development and terminology applied to this crucial episode in marine life signify its considerable complexity. The GOBE includes successive biodiversity phases of the pelagic and benthic biotas, possibly decoupled. Put simply, the GOBE can be seen as a sequence of diversifications of the planktonic (late Cambrian–Early Ordovician), level-bottom benthic (Early–Middle Ordovician) and reef communities (Middle–Late Ordovician), although the boundaries of these ‘events’ are diachronous (as for the entire GOBE), and it is logical to assume that these communities co-evolved and interacted. The GOBE also includes several Biotic Immigration Events (BIMEs), such as the ‘Richmondian Invasion’ and the ‘Boda Event’, recording the large-scale dispersal of taxa from one biogeographical area to another. The GOBE is thus the sum of the diversity trends of all individual fossil groups showing rapid increases, diachronously, during different intervals and across different regions. It thus spans the entire Ordovician, capturing the increasing total diversity of marine organisms during the period. The GOBE is not simply one, but many sequential events.

Citation

Servais, T., & Harper, D. A. (2018). The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE): definition, concept and duration. Lethaia: An International Journal of Palaeontology and Stratigraphy, 51(2), 151-164. https://doi.org/10.1111/let.12259

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 16, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jan 22, 2018
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jan 29, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 22, 2019
• Journal: Lethaia
• Print ISSN: 0024-1164
• Electronic ISSN: 1502-3931
• Publisher: Scandinavian University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 151-164
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/let.12259
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1339940