Product Code Database
The Early Ordovician is the first epoch of the Ordovician period, corresponding to the Lower Ordovician series of the Ordovician system. It began after the Age 10 of the Furongian epoch of the Cambrian and lasted from to million years ago, until the Dapingian age of the Middle Ordovician. It includes Tremadocian and Floian ages.
Two Auxiliary boundary Stratotype Sections and Points (ASSPs) were also established for the Lower Ordovician/Tremadocian: the first one in the Lawson Cove section in Millard County, Utah, US, and the second one in the Xiaoyangqiao section, North China. Both ASSPs were approved by the Subcommission on Ordovician Stratigraphy in 2016 and 2019, respectively, but, in 2021, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) proposed to deny the use of specific points and replace them by Standard Auxiliary Boundary Stratotypes (SABS) for more "flexible" correlations with GSSPs.
Studies of oxygen isotopes from (particularly conodont apatites from Nevada and Utah) show that at the end of the Early Ordovician the climate began to change from greenhouse to icehouse. These changes occurred gradually and were accompanied by fluctuations in sea surface temperature with an approximate duration of 104 to 107 years. By the end of the Middle Ordovician, the surface of the low-latitude seas had cooled to temperatures comparable to today's equatorial ones.
Substantial older ("pre-GOBE") radiations are observed in the Early Ordovician sediments of South China. However, it is questionable, were they global or not.
From the Furongian to the end of the Early Ordovician, 495-470 Ma, the Ollo de Sapo magmatism occurred on the northwestern territory of Gondwana, which is now the Iberian Peninsula.
Echinoderm diversity increased in the Early Ordovician: new classes appeared, including Asteroidea, ophiuroids, and . Various Early Ordovician echinoderms are found in the Fillmore Formation in Utah, USA, Fezouata Formation in Anti-Atlas, Morocco, and Saint-Chinian Formation in Montagne Noire, France.
Nektaspida have become less diverse after Cambrian. They most likely inhabited restricted or colder brackish water seas in the Ordovician. Tariccoia is a member of this arthropod clade from the Lower Ordovician of Morocco. In the same Fezouata Formation, Aegirocassis was discovered. This filter feeder arthropod reached over 2 m in length and was the largest animal of its time. Marrellomorpha, appeared in Cambrian, continued to exist in Early Ordovician.
Soft-bodied and shelly organisms, including Cambrian as well as the new taxa of the Ordovician origin, constitute a fossil Liexi fauna, preserved in the Lower Ordovician Madaoyu Formation of Hunan, South China. Fossil specimens include , , echinoderms, , , and . worms, including Liexiscolex and a possible Ottoia specimen, are of great interest. Early Ordovician Priapulida, similar to their Cambrian predecessors, are also known from northern China.
In the deep-water sediments of the Early Ordovician (Floian) Al Rose Formation in the Inyo Mountains, California, the trilobite fauna have been discovered. Despite the low species diversity, this fauna is unique due to differences in the composition of families from more eastern complexes of the comparable age. Fossils identified as belonging to the Globampyx, Protopresbynileus, Carolinites, Cloacaspis, Geragnostus and Hintzeia genera. In the Early Ordovician, this territory was located near the paleocontinent of Laurentia.
Biostratigraphy
The global stages of the Lower Ordovician, as well as of other series, are also subdivided into stage slices (time slices), which are corresponding to the base of conodont or graptolite zones. In addition to the global stages, the Tetragraptus approximatus Zone is also defined in the regional subdivisions of the UK and Australia, and the Didymograptus protobifidus Zone in those of North America, Australia and Baltoscandia.
rowspan=6 Floian Didymograptus protobifidus Zone (g) Oepikodus evae Zone (c) Tetragraptus approximatus Zone (g) Tremadocian Paroistodus proteus Zone (c) Paltodus deltifer Zone (c) Iapetognathus fluctivagus Zone (c)
North America
The following conodont zones are distinguished in Early Ordovician deposits of Boothia Peninsula, Canada (from upper to lower):
Asia
Graptolite (g) and conodont (c) zonal subdivisions of southern Siberia (from upper to lower):
Australia
On the Australian scale, the global Lower Ordovician roughly corresponds to the Lancefieldian, Bendigonian, Chewtonian and lower Castlemainian stages.
rowspan=15 Castlemainian (lower part) Isograptus victoriae lunatus (g), upper part of Oepikodus evae (c) Chewtonian Isograptus primulus (g), Oepikodus evae (c) Didymograptus protobifidus (g), Oepikodus evae (c) Bendigonian Upper part of Pendeograptus fruticosus (g), lowermost Oepikodus evae (c) Lower parts of Pendeograptus fruticosus (g), uppermost Prioniodus elegans (c) Pendeograptus fruticosus (g), Prioniodus elegans (c) Lancefieldian Uppermost Tetragraptus approximatus (g), lowermost Prioniodus elegans (c) Lower part of Tetragraptus approximatus (g), uppermost Paroistodus proteus (c) Araneograptus murrayi (g), Paroistodus proteus (c) Upper part of Aorograptus victoriae (g), lower part of Paroistodus proteus (c) Lower part of Aorograptus victoriae (g), upper part of Paltodus deltifer (c) Psigraptus jacksoni (g), lower part of Paltodus deltifer (c) Anisograptus (g), upper part of Cordylodus angulatus (c) Rhabdinopora fl abelliformis parabola (g), Cordylodus angulatus (c) Lower part of Cordylodus angulatus (c)
Paleogeography
The Iapetus Ocean, located between Gondwana, Laurentia and Baltica, reached over 4000 km in width at the beginning of the Ordovician. In the north, between eastern Laurentia and Siberia, it connected with Panthalassa, which covered about half the planet. Formed in late Cambrian, Rheic Ocean stretched between Gondwana and the microcontinent of Avalonia. Cuyania (northwest of today's Argentina) was located at low latitudes. Gondwana, already a large continent, consisted of today's South America, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India, eastern Australia and eastern Antarctica. Laurentia included the territories of Mexico, the US, Canada, Greenland, Scotland and partly Ireland. Laurentia was located in the tropical latitudes of the southern hemisphere; today's central Nevada and western Utah were covered by sea waters at the end of the Early Ordovician.
Climate
In 2007, Bassett et al. analyzed the oxygen isotope values of Early Ordovician strata of the Lange Ranch section in central Texas and concluded that tropical sea temperatures at that time could have reached 37 °C or 42 °C. Similar results were recovered by Trotter et al. in 2008, after oxygen isotope analysis of conodonts from the four paleoplates located in the Early Ordovician at low latitudes. Authors of the 2021 article give values in accordance with the study by Song et al. (2019): from 43.9 °C 485 million years ago to 37.1 °C 470 million years ago. High temperatures that persisted throughout the Early Ordovician affected the biodiversification later, in the Middle Ordovician. CO2 level in Early Ordovician atmosphere was high while oxygen levels varied from approximately 10% to 13%.
Major events
The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE), manifested in an increase in the diversity of marine life, occurred in Early Ordovician. Along with the Cambrian explosion and radiation in the early Mesozoic, it is the most significant biodiversification in the Phanerozoic eon. This event occurred at different intervals depending on the groups of organisms and the geographical region, and, in fact, the GOBE refers to a whole complex of sequential and interconnected processes of evolution and migration of organisms. The first phase, associated with planktonic communities, probably began in the late Cambrian and ended in the late Early Ordovician. The Early Ordovician marks the beginning of the second phase, which affected the inhabitants of benthos. One of the possible signs of the GOBE is the fossil reefs found in the Early Ordovician Dumugol Formation, South Korea. This reefs, built by the microorganisms and of the genus Archaeoscyphia, are different from the Cambrian and early Tremadocian and this discovery confirm that reef communities occupied deeper-sea habitats as early as in the middle Tremadocian. The radiation of marine life during the GOBE in the Early Ordovician was resulted by the transition from sulphidic to oxic conditions in the oceans of that time.
Paleontology
In Early Ordovician (Floian) strata of the San Juan Formation, Argentina, the oldest microfossils, known as calcisphers or calcitarchs, are present. Early forms reached 80 to 250 micrometre in diameter. Some of these organisms are probably algae. Calcitarchs lived in the subtidal zone, from coastal waves to shoals and . Algae of the genus Amsassia appeared. They already lived off the southern coast of Laurentia and Cuyania in the Early Ordovician, and later occupied an even wider range and disappeared only during the Ordovician-Silurian extinction. In Tremadocian, Amsassia inhabited small reefal mounds in shallow sea waters. Discovered in the Floian strata of Newfoundland, coral-like of Reptamsassia divergens and Reptamsassia minuta allows to judge the level of development of reef ecosystems of the Early Ordovician, since they are the oldest example of symbiotic intergrowth of modular species.
Mineral resources
Petroleum and natural gas exploration is underway in the Early Ordovician Tongzi Formation and Meitan Formation formations in Sichuan Basin and the Early Ordovician strata of the Tarim Basin, China. In the Lower Ordovician of the Tarim Basin near Tazhong, oil accumulations are found at depths of up to 9000 m.
Further reading
External links
|
|
