The Magnitude and Duration of Late Ordovician–Early Silurian Glaciation
Creators
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1.
California Institute of Technology
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2.
Washington University in St. Louis
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3.
University of Washington
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4.
University of California, Riverside
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5.
University of California, Los Angeles
Abstract
Understanding ancient climate changes is hampered by the inability to disentangle trends in ocean temperature from trends in continental ice volume. We used carbonate "clumped" isotope paleothermometry to constrain ocean temperatures, and thereby estimate ice volumes, through the Late Ordovician–Early Silurian glaciation. We find tropical ocean temperatures of 32° to 37°C except for short-lived cooling by ~5°C during the final Ordovician stage. Evidence for ice sheets spans much of the study interval, but the cooling pulse coincided with a glacial maximum during which ice volumes likely equaled or exceeded those of the last (Pleistocene) glacial maximum. This cooling also coincided with a large perturbation of the carbon cycle and the Late Ordovician mass extinction.
Additional Information
© 2011 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received for publication 23 November 2010. Accepted for publication 19 January 2011. Published Online 27 January 2011. We thank T. Raub, M. Rohrssen, and B. Gaines for assistance with field and lab work; D. Boulet and Société des établissements de plein air du Québec (SEPAQ) Anticosti for permission to work in Anticosti National Park; and B. Hunda for supplying samples. This work was funded by an Agouron Institute award to W.W.F. and D.A.F. and NSF Division of Earth Sciences awards to W.W.F. and J.M.E.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - Finnegan.SOM.pdf
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Finnegan.SOM.pdf
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Additional details
Identifiers
- Eprint ID
- 22403
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20110222-093848058
Funding
- Agouron Institute
- NSF
Dates
- Created
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2011-03-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field