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Cambrian–Ordovician Extinction Event
The Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event occurred approximately 488 million years ago (Myr, mya). This early Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon extinction event eliminated many brachiopods and conodonts, and severely reduced the number of trilobite species. The Period in the Cambrian extinction in which most of the extinction occurred was the Caerfai Period. It was preceded by the less-documented (but probably more extensive) End-Botomian extinction event around 517 million years ago and the Dresbachian extinction event about 502 million years ago. The Cambrian–Ordovician event ended the Cambrian Geologic period, Period, and led into the Ordovician Period in the Paleozoic Geologic era, Era. Theories * Glaciation * Anoxic sea water, Depletion of oxygen in marine waters * Flood basalt event (Kalkarindji large igneous province, Australia) Controversy Soft-body fossils with morphology characteristic of the Cambrian have been uncovered in Morocco, dated 20 million years po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
End-Botomian Mass Extinction
The end-Botomian mass extinction event, also known as the late early Cambrian extinctions, refer to two extinction intervals that occurred during Stages 4 and 5 of the Cambrian Period, approximately 513 to 509 million years ago. Estimates for the decline in global diversity over these events range from 50% of marine genera up to 80%. Among the organisms affected by this event were the small shelly fossils, archaeocyathids (an extinct group of sponges), trilobites, brachiopods, hyoliths, and mollusks. Causes There are several hypotheses for the causes of these extinctions. There is evidence that major changes in the carbon cycle and sea level occurred during this time. Evidence also exists for the development of anoxia (a loss of oxygen) in some environments in the oceans. One hypothesis that unifies this evidence links these environmental changes to widespread volcanic eruptions caused by the emplacement of the Kalkarindji Large Igneous Province A large igneous provinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glaciation
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate between glacial periods. The Last Glacial Period ended about 15,000 years ago. The Holocene is the current interglacial. A time with no glaciers on Earth is considered a greenhouse climate state. Quaternary Period Within the Quaternary, which started about 2.6 million years before present, there have been a number of glacials and interglacials. At least eight glacial cycles have occurred in the last 740,000 years alone. Penultimate Glacial Period The Penultimate Glacial Period (PGP) is the glacial period that occurred before the Last Glacial Period. It began about 194,000 years ago and ended 135,000 years ago, with the beginning of the Eemian interglacial. Last Glacial Period The last glacial period was the most recent glacial pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Climate Variability And Change
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history as an end in itself, as well as its usefulness to give perspective on the problems of the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinction Events
An extinction event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp change in the diversity and abundance of multicellular organisms. It occurs when the rate of extinction increases with respect to the background extinction rate and the rate of speciation. Estimates of the number of major mass extinctions in the last 540 million years range from as few as five to more than twenty. These differences stem from disagreement as to what constitutes a "major" extinction event, and the data chosen to measure past diversity. The "Big Five" mass extinctions In a landmark paper published in 1982, Jack Sepkoski and David M. Raup identified five particular geological intervals with excessive diversity loss. They were originally identified as outliers on a general trend of decreasing extinction rates during the Phanerozoic, but as more stringent statistical tests have been applied t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hallam, Anthony
Anthony Hallam, aka Tony Hallam, (23 December 1933 – 23 October 2017) was a British geologist, palaeontologist and writer. His research interests concentrated on the Jurassic Period, with particular reference to stratigraphy, sea level changes and palaeontology. He was also interested in mass extinctions, especially the end Triassic event. Biography Born in Leicester and having attended local schools, Hallam won an exhibition to St John's College, Cambridge, graduating with a double first class degree in geology 1955. He remained at Cambridge University as researcher under the supervision of the late William Joscelyn Arkell, widely regarded as the expert on the Jurassic Period at that time. His thesis involved the study of the alternating limestone – shale rhythms of the Lower Jurassic of Southern England. He also published work on the evolution of '' Gryphaea'', an extinct species of oyster. He was awarded a PhD in 1959. Following a period as lecturer at the Univ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Ordovician
The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. The Ordovician, named after the Welsh tribe of the Ordovices, was defined by Charles Lapworth in 1879 to resolve a dispute between followers of Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison, who were placing the same rock beds in North Wales in the Cambrian and Silurian systems, respectively. Lapworth recognized that the fossil fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian systems, and placed them in a system of their own. The Ordovician received international approval in 1960 (forty years after Lapworth's death), when it was adopted as an official period of the Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress. Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it did in the earlier Cam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Furongian
The Furongian is the fourth and final epoch and series of the Cambrian. It lasted from to million years ago. It succeeds the Miaolingian series of the Cambrian and precedes the Lower Ordovician Tremadocian Stage. It is subdivided into three stages: the Paibian, Jiangshanian and the unnamed 10th stage of the Cambrian. Naming The Furongian was also known as the Cambrian Series 4, and the name replaced the older term Upper Cambrian and equivalent to the local term Hunanian. The present name was ratified by the International Commission on Stratigraphy in 2003. () means ' lotus' in Mandarin and refers to Hunan which is known as the "lotus state". Definition The lower boundary is defined in the same way as the GSSP of the Paibian Stage. Both begin with the first appearance of the trilobite ''Glyptagnostus reticulatus'' around million years ago. The upper boundary is the lower boundary and GSSP of the Tremadocian Stage which is the first appearance of the conodont ''Iapetognath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geologic Time Scale
The geologic time scale, or geological time scale, (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the process of relating strata to time) and geochronology (scientific branch of geology that aims to determine the age of rocks). It is used primarily by Earth scientists (including geologists, paleontologists, geophysicists, geochemists, and paleoclimatologists) to describe the timing and relationships of events in geologic history. The time scale has been developed through the study of rock layers and the observation of their relationships and identifying features such as lithologies, paleomagnetic properties, and fossils. The definition of standardized international units of geologic time is the responsibility of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), a constituent body of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), whose primary objective is to precisely de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botomian
Cambrian Stage 4 is the still unnamed fourth stage of the Cambrian and the upper stage of Cambrian Series 2. It follows Cambrian Stage 3 and lies below the Wuliuan. The lower boundary has not been formally defined by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. One proposal is the first appearance of two trilobite genera, ''Olenellus'' or '' Redlichia''. Another proposal is the first appearance of the trilobite species '' Arthricocephalus chauveaui''. Both proposals will set the lower boundary close to million years ago. The upper boundary corresponds to the beginning of the Wuliuan. Naming The International Commission on Stratigraphy The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), sometimes referred to unofficially as the "International Stratigraphic Commission", is a daughter or major subcommittee grade scientific daughter organization that concerns itself with stratigr ... has not named the fourth stage of the Cambrian yet. In the widely used Siberian nomenclature stage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Large Igneous Province
A large igneous province (LIP) is an extremely large accumulation of igneous rocks, including intrusive (sills, dikes) and extrusive (lava flows, tephra deposits), arising when magma travels through the crust towards the surface. The formation of LIPs is variously attributed to mantle plumes or to processes associated with divergent plate tectonics. The formation of some of the LIPs in the past 500 million years coincide in time with mass extinctions and rapid climatic changes, which has led to numerous hypotheses about causal relationships. LIPs are fundamentally different from any other currently active volcanoes or volcanic systems. Definition In 1992 researchers first used the term ''large igneous province'' to describe very large accumulations—areas greater than 100,000 square kilometers (approximately the area of Iceland)—of mafic igneous rocks that were erupted or emplaced at depth within an extremely short geological time interval: a few million years or less. Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalkarindji
Kalkaringi (formerly Wave Hill Welfare Settlement, also spelt Kalkarindji ) is a town and locality in the Northern Territory of Australia, located on the Buntine Highway about south of the territory capital of Darwin and located about south of the municipal seat in Katherine. History Kalkarindji and the nearby settlement of Daguragu are the population centres of the land formerly held under the Wave Hill Cattle Station. In 1966, the Aboriginal station workers, led by Vincent Lingiari, staged the Gurindji strike, also known as the Wave Hill Walk Off, in protest against oppressive labour practices and land dispossession. A portion of land was returned to the Gurindji people in by UK-based station owners, the Vestey Group, after negotiations by the Whitlam government in 1975. Kalkarindji reportedly began in 1972 as the "Wave Hill Aboriginal Township." On 5 October 1976, land was associated with existing settlement was proclaimed under the Northern Territory’s Crown Land ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flood Basalt
A flood basalt (or plateau basalt) is the result of a giant volcanic eruption or series of eruptions that covers large stretches of land or the ocean floor with basalt lava. Many flood basalts have been attributed to the onset of a hotspot reaching the surface of the earth via a mantle plume. Flood basalt provinces such as the Deccan Traps of India are often called '' traps'', after the Swedish word ''trappa'' (meaning "staircase"), due to the characteristic stairstep geomorphology of many associated landscapes. Michael R. Rampino and Richard Stothers (1988) cited eleven distinct flood basalt episodes occurring in the past 250 million years, creating large igneous provinces, lava plateaus, and mountain ranges. However, more have been recognized such as the large Ontong Java Plateau, and the Chilcotin Group, though the latter may be linked to the Columbia River Basalt Group. Large igneous provinces have been connected to five mass extinction events, and may be associated w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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