Late Ordovician Mass Extinction: Earth, fire and ice  

作　　者：David A.T.Harper 

机构地区：[1]Palaeoecosystems Group,Department of Earth Sciences,Durham University,Durham DH13LE,UK

出　　处：《National Science Review》2024年第1期46-60,共15页国家科学评论（英文版）

基　　金：currently supported by the Lever-hulme Trust (UK)(EM-2021-010)。

摘　　要：The Late Ordovician Mass Extinction was the earliest of the ‘big' five extinction events and the earliest to affect the trajectory of metazoan life. Two phases have been identified near the start of the Hirnantian period and in the middle. It was a massive taxonomic extinction, a weak phylogenetic extinction and a relatively benign ecological extinction. A rapid cooling, triggering a major ice age that reduced the temperature of surface waters, prompted a drop in sea level of some 100 m and introduced toxic bottom waters onto the shelves. These symptoms of more fundamental planetary processes have been associated with a range of factors with an underlying driver identified as volcanicity. Volcanic eruptions, and other products, may have extended back in time to at least the Sandbian and early Katian, suggesting the extinctions were more protracted and influential than hitherto documented.

关 键 词：ORDOVICIAN LOME PALEOECOLOGY PALAEOBIOGEOGRAPHY biotas 

分 类 号：P534.42[天文地球—古生物学与地层学] Q911[天文地球—地质学]