Two of the greatest evolutionary events in the history of life on Earth occurred during Early Paleozoic time. The first was the Cambrian explosion of skeletonized marine animals about 540 million years ago. The second was the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event," which is the focus of this book. During the 46-million-year Ordovician Period (489–443 m.y.), a bewildering array of adaptive radiations of "Paleozoic- and Modern-type" biotas appeared in marine habitats, the first animals (arthropods) walked on land, and the first non-vascular bryophyte-like plants (based on their cryptospore record) colonized terrestrial areas with damp environments.
This book represents a compilation by a large team of Ordovician specialists from around the world, who have enthusiastically cooperated to produce this first globally orientated, internationally sponsored IGCP (International Geological Correlation Program) project on Ordovician biotas. The major part is an assembly of genus- and species-level diversity data for the many Ordovician fossil groups. The book also presents an evaluation of how each group diversified through Ordovician time, with assessments of patterns of change and rates of origination and extinction. As such, it will become the standard work and data source for biotic studies on the Ordovician Period.
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction
- PART I Scaling of Ordovician Time and Measures for Assessing Biodiversity Change
- 2. Stratigraphic Framework and Time Slices
- 3. Calibration of the Ordovician Timescale
- 4. Measures of Diversity
- PART II Conspectus of the Ordovician World
- 5. Major Terranes in the Ordovician
- 6. Isotopic Signatures 6
- 7. Ordovician Oceans and Climate 7
- 8. Was There an Ordovician Superplume Event?
- 9. End Ordovician Glaciation
- 10. Ordovician Sea Level Changes: A Baltoscandian Perspective
- PART III Taxonomic Groups
- 11. Radiolarians
- 12. Sponges
- 13. Stromatoporoids
- 14. Conulariids
- 15. Corals
- 16. Bryozoans
- 17. Brachiopods
- 18. Polyplacophoran and Symmetrical Univalve Mollusks
- 19. Gastropods
- 20. Bivalve and Rostroconch Mollusks
- 21. Nautiloid Cephalopods
- 22. Tube-Shaped Incertae Sedis
- 23. Worms, Wormlike and Sclerite-Bearing Taxa
- 24. Trilobites
- 25. Eurypterids, Phyllocarids, and Ostracodes
- 26. Crinozoan, Blastozoan, Echinozoan, Asterozoan, and Homalozoan Echinoderms
- 27. Graptolites: Patterns of Diversity Across Paleolatitudes
- 28. Chitinozoans
- 29. Conodonts: Lower to Middle Ordovician Record
- 30. Vertebrates (Agnathans and Gnathostomes)
- 31. Receptaculitids and Algae
- 32. Acritarchs
- 33. Miospores and the Emergence of Land Plants
- PART IV Aspects of Ordocician Radiation
- 34. The Ichnologic Record of the Ordovician Radiation
- 35. The Ordovician Radiation: Toward a New Global Synthesis
- List of Figures and Tables
- References
- Contributors
- Index
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