Ordovician trilobites are reviewed based on a new species-level relational database. The stratigraphical ranges of all 56 families with occurrences in the Ordovician are documented and the content, phylogenetic status, diversity and Ordovician distribution by major palaeocontinent/terrane are discussed. Aspects of higher classification are also dealt with. Global sampling is heavily biased towa...

The oldest reported occurrence of cryptospores supposed to derive from land plants (embryophytes) is currently considered be in the Middle Ordovician. two genera Virgatasporites and Attritasporites, described 1960ʹs Early Ordovician (Tremadocian) Algeria, are morphologically close miospores, therefore pose a dilemma, because these spore-like microfossils recorded before first appearance plant d...

With the targets of petroleum exploration transferred to deep and ancient strata, abundant oil gas resources have been found in Lower Paleozoic older strata central western China. Due complex evolutionary processes including multiple episodes hydrocarbon accumulation ubiquitously accompanied by secondary alterations, significant uncertainties remain concerning generation time these revealed sou...

The Ordovician (Hirnantian; 445 Ma) hosts the second most severe mass extinction in Earth history, coinciding with Gondwanan glaciation and increased geochemical evidence for marine anoxia. It remains unclear whether cooling, expanded oxygen deficiency, or a combination drove Late Mass Extinction (LOME). Here, we present combined iodine sulfur isotope data from three globally distributed carbon...

A rise in atmospheric O(2) has been linked to the Cambrian explosion of life. For the plankton and animal radiation that began some 40 million yr later and continued through much of the Ordovician (Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event), the search for an environmental trigger(s) has remained elusive. Here we present a carbon and sulfur isotope mass balance model for the latest Cambrian tim...

Abstract The Longshou Shan of western China is the northern backstop Cenozoic Himalayan-Tibetan orogen and occupies a key linkage between Tarim continent North craton which separate pre-Cenozoic Tethyan orogenic system Central Asian system. Therefore, Paleoproterozoic–Paleozoic evolution this region critical to understanding extent overprinting deformation, construction Eurasian continent, rela...

BACKGROUND During the Ordovician the global diversity increased dramatically at family, genus and species levels. Partially the diversification is explained by an increased nutrient, and phytoplankton availability in the open water. Cephalopods are among the top predators of today's open oceans. Their Ordovician occurrences, diversity evolution and abundance pattern potentially provides informa...

The fossil record of marine animals suggests that diversity-dependent processes exerted strong control on biodiversification: after the Ordovician Radiation, genus richness did not trend for hundreds of millions of years. However, diversity subsequently rose dramatically in the Cretaceous and Cenozoic (145 million years ago-present), indicating that limits on diversification can be overcome by ...

Geochemical redox proxies indicate that seafloor anoxia occurred during the latest Ordovician glacial maximum, coincident with second pulse of Late mass extinction. However, expanded in a climate strikingly contrasts warming-associated Mesozoic anoxic events and raises questions as to both causal mechanism ocean deoxygenation its relationship Here we firstly report iodine-to-calcium ratio (I/Ca...