Tremadocian

Tremadocian
485.4 ± 1.9 – 477.7 ± 1.4 Ma
Chronology
Etymology
Name formalityFormal
Usage information
Celestial bodyEarth
Regional usageGlobal (ICS)
Time scale(s) usedICS Time Scale
Definition
Chronological unitAge
Stratigraphic unitStage
Time span formalityFormal
Lower boundary definitionFAD of the Conodont Iapetognathus fluctivagus.
Lower boundary GSSPGreenpoint section, Green Point, Newfoundland, Canada
49°40′58″N 57°57′55″W / 49.6829°N 57.9653°W / 49.6829; -57.9653
Lower GSSP ratified2000[5]
Upper boundary definitionFAD of the Graptolite Tetragraptus approximatus
Upper boundary GSSPDiabasbrottet quarry, Västergötland, Sweden
58°21′32″N 12°30′09″E / 58.3589°N 12.5024°E / 58.3589; 12.5024
Upper GSSP ratified2002[6]
Rock from the Skiddaw Group, of Ordovician (Tremadocian) age, at Scawgill Bridge quarry in Cumbria, England, UK

The Tremadocian is the lowest stage of Ordovician. Together with the later Floian Stage it forms the Lower Ordovician Epoch. The Tremadocian lasted from 485.4 to 477.7 million years ago. The base of the Tremadocian is defined as the first appearance of the conodont species Iapetognathus fluctivagus at the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) section on Newfoundland.[7]

Naming[edit]

The Tremadocian is named after the village Tremadoc in Wales. The name was proposed by Adam Sedgwick in 1846 (as "Tremadoc group").

GSSP[edit]

The GSSP for the beginning of the Tremadocian is the Green Point section (49°40′58″N 57°57′55″W / 49.6829°N 57.9653°W / 49.6829; -57.9653)[7] in Gros Morne National Park, in western Newfoundland. It is defined as the first appearance of the conodont species Iapetognathus fluctivagus. This horizon can be found 101.8 m above the Greenpoint section datum within bed number 23.[8] The boundary lies within the Broom Point Member, of the Green Point Formation which is part of the Cow Head Group.[5] The first planktonic graptolites appear 4.8 m above the first appearance of Iapetognathus fluctivagus at Greenpoint section.[5]

The Tremadocian ends with the beginning of the Floian which is defined as the first appearance of Tetragraptus approximatus at the GSSP in Diabasbrottet quarry, Västergötland, Sweden.[9]

Regional stages[edit]

In North America the first stage of the Ordovician is the Gasconadian Stage.[10] In Baltic region the stages corresponding to Tremadocian are Pakerort stage (older) and Varangu stage (younger).[11][12]

Major events[edit]

The Cambrian-Tremadocian boundary is marked by the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction event. Overall the amount of biodiversity of the Cambrian was maintained.[13] At the beginning of the Tremadocian, about 485.4 million years ago, biodiversity, which had been at a low level, began its long increase phase, known as the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.[14]

At the Furongian‒Tremadocian boundary, a mantle plume event occurred on the territory of the northwestern Gondwana, which is now the Iberian Peninsula. Ollo de Sapo magmatic event continued in this region further into Ordovician.[15]

The middle of the Tremadocian witnessed an extinction event known as the Mid-Tremadocian Extinction Event[16] or the Base Stairsian Mass Extinction Event,[17] which is particularly known to have affected Baltican conodonts.[16] This extinction event may have been caused by anoxia.[18][19]

Tremadocian life[edit]

Planktonic graptolites, an important index fossil, appear during the Tremadocian.[5] Tremadocian cephalopods were not very different from their Cambrian predecessors. Specimens of Ellesmeroceras and possibly Bassleroceras, found in Santa Rosita Formation, northwestern Argentina, show that cephalopods first migrated to the waters off western Gondwana already in the early Tremadocian. In the middle Tremadocian, cephalopods became more diverse and occupied new ecological niches.[20] During Tremadocian there was an exchange of fauna between Avalonia and Gondwana across the Rheic Ocean, as evidenced by the findings of morphologically similar trilobites of the genus Platypeltoides in Belgium, Wales (both were parts of Avalonia) and Morocco (Gondwana).[21]

Ocean and climate[edit]

Further information: Ordovician § Climate_and_sea_level

The Early Ordovician in general was a time of transgression. The climate was slowly cooling throughout the Ordovician.[22]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Wellman, C.H.; Gray, J. (2000). "The microfossil record of early land plants". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 355 (1398): 717–732. doi:10.1098/rstb.2000.0612. PMC 1692785. PMID 10905606.
  2. ^ Korochantseva, Ekaterina; Trieloff, Mario; Lorenz, Cyrill; Buykin, Alexey; Ivanova, Marina; Schwarz, Winfried; Hopp, Jens; Jessberger, Elmar (2007). "L-chondrite asteroid breakup tied to Ordovician meteorite shower by multiple isochron 40 Ar- 39 Ar dating". Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 42 (1): 113–130. Bibcode:2007M&PS...42..113K. doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2007.tb00221.x.
  3. ^ Lindskog, A.; Costa, M. M.; Rasmussen, C.M.Ø.; Connelly, J. N.; Eriksson, M. E. (2017-01-24). "Refined Ordovician timescale reveals no link between asteroid breakup and biodiversification". Nature Communications. 8: 14066. doi:10.1038/ncomms14066. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 5286199. PMID 28117834. It has been suggested that the Middle Ordovician meteorite bombardment played a crucial role in the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, but this study shows that the two phenomena were unrelated
  4. ^ "Chart/Time Scale". www.stratigraphy.org. International Commission on Stratigraphy.
  5. ^ a b c d Cooper, Roger; Nowlan, Godfrey; Williams, S. H. (March 2001). "Global Stratotype Section and Point for base of the Ordovician System" (PDF). Episodes. 24 (1): 19–28. doi:10.18814/epiiugs/2001/v24i1/005. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-03-25. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  6. ^ Bergström, M.; Löfgren, Anita; Maletz, Jörg (December 2004). "The GSSP of the Second (Upper) Stage of the Lower Ordovician Series: Diabasbrottet at Hunneberg, Province of Västergötland, Southwestern Sweden" (PDF). Episodes. 27 (4): 265–272. doi:10.18814/epiiugs/2004/v27i4/005. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-06-20. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  7. ^ a b "GSSP Table - Paleozoic Era". Archived from the original on 2023-10-08.
  8. ^ "GSSP for Tremadocian Stage". timescalefoundation.org. Archived from the original on 2024-04-04.
  9. ^ "GSSP for Floian Stage". timescalefoundation.org. Archived from the original on 2024-04-04.
  10. ^ "Kentucky Stratigraphy With Stage Correlations". University of Kentucky. Archived from the original on 2024-04-16.
  11. ^ Paškevičius, Juozas (2007). "Correlation of the Ordovician regional stages of the Baltic palaeobasin with new global stages" (PDF). Geologija (57): 30–36. ISSN 1392-110X. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-04-16.
  12. ^ "Ordovician of the Baltic". Paleobiology Database. Archived from the original on 2024-04-16. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
  13. ^ Sepkoski, J. J. (1995). "The Ordovician Radiations: Diversification and Extinction Shown by Global Genus-Level Taxonomic Data". pp. 393–396. Archived from the original on 2022-10-04. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
  14. ^ Yiying Deng, Junxuan Fan, Shengchao Yang, Yukun Shi, Zhengbo Lu, Huiqing Xu, Zongyuan Sun, Fangqi Zhao, Zhangshuai Hou (2023). "No Furongian Biodiversity Gap: Evidence from South China". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 618 (1): 111492. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2023.111492.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ Josep Maria Casas, J. Brendan Murphy, Teresa Sanchez-Garcia, Jacques de Poulpiquet, José-Javier Alvaro, A. Díez-Montes, Joan Guimerà (2023). "Does the Ollo de Sapo magmatic event support Furongian-Tremadocian mantle plume activity fringing NW Gondwana?". International Geology Review. doi:10.1080/00206814.2023.2263787.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ a b Stouge, Svend; Bagnoli, Gabriella; Rasmussen, Jan A. (1 July 2020). "Late Cambrian (Furongian) to mid-Ordovician euconodont events on Baltica: Invasions and immigrations". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 549: 109151. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2019.04.007. S2CID 146630424. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  17. ^ Lu, Xinze; Edwards, Cole T.; Kendall, Brian (15 January 2023). "No evidence for expansion of global ocean euxinia during the base Stairsian mass extinction event (Tremadocian, Early Ordovician)". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 341: 116–131. doi:10.1016/j.gca.2022.11.028. S2CID 254361718. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  18. ^ Edwards, Cole T.; Fike, David A.; Saltzman, Matthew Ross; Lu, Wanyi; Lu, Zunli (1 January 2018). "Evidence for local and global redox conditions at an Early Ordovician (Tremadocian) mass extinction". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 481: 125–135. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2017.10.002. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  19. ^ Saltzman, Matthew Ross; Edwards, Cole T.; Adrain, Jonathan M.; Westrop, Stephen R. (1 September 2015). "Persistent oceanic anoxia and elevated extinction rates separate the Cambrian and Ordovician radiations". Geology. 43 (9): 807–810. doi:10.1130/G36814.1. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  20. ^ Marcela Cichowolski, N. Emilio Vaccari, Alexander Pohle, Daniel Andres Morón-Alfonso, Romain Vaucher, Beatriz G. Waisfeld (2023). "Early Tremadocian cephalopods from Santa Rosita Formation in NW Argentina: the oldest record for South America". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 68 (4): 583–601. doi:10.4202/app.01103.2023.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  21. ^ Lukáš Laibl, Thomas Servais, Bernard Mottequin (2023). "Tremadocian (Ordovician) trilobites from the Brabant Massif (Belgium): Palaeogeographical and palaeoecological implications". Geobios. 81: 7–16. doi:10.1016/j.geobios.2023.04.003.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  22. ^ Munnecke, Axel; Calner, Mikael; Harper, David A.T.; Servais, Thomas (1 October 2010). "Ordovician and Silurian sea–water chemistry, sea level, and climate: A synopsis". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 296 (3–4): 389–413. Bibcode:2010PPP...296..389M. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2010.08.001.

External links[edit]

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