Ordovician - paleoind.sitehost.iu.edu 9 - Ordovician and... · Department of Geological Sciences | Indiana University (c) 2012, P. David Polly Paleontology and Geology of Indiana

Department of Geological Sciences | Indiana University(c) 2012, P. David Polly Paleontology and Geology of Indiana

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P. David PollyDepartment of Geological SciencesIndiana UniversityBloomington, Indiana 47405 [email protected]

The Cincinnatian (painting by John Agnew from A Sea Without Fish: Life in the Ordovician Sea of the Cincinnati Region, D.L.

Meyer and R.A. Davis, Indiana University Press.

The Cincinnatian and the Richmondian InvasionOrdovician

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Objectives


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1. The Ordovician system in Indiana

2. Cambrian and Ordovician life

3. Taconic Orogeny and the formation of the Cincinnati Arch

4. Paleogeography of the Cincinnatian in Indiana

5. Facies

6. Cincinnati School of paleontology

7. Ordovician life

8. The Richmondian invasion and the end-Ordovician extinction


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Bedrock Geology of Indiana. 2002. H. H. Gray (data compiler). Indiana Geological Survey.

Ordovician

Silurian

Devonian

Mississippian

Pennsylvanian

Youngest (300 mya)

Oldest (470 mya)

Bedrock and Physiography

Map of Indiana showing physiographic divisions. 2001, by Henry Gray. Indiana Geological Survey.


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Ordovician Rock Units

Three main formations:

Kope FmDillsboro FmWhitewater Fm

Global stage: KatianNA series: CincinnatianSequence: TippecanoeAge range: 445.6 - 455.8 mya


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Hallucigenia

Anomalocaris

Wiwaxia

Wolcott Quarry, British Columbia

Cambrian: Burgess Shale, British ColumbiaA classic soft-preservation Middle Cambrian site505 million years


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Evolution of Trophic Levels and ‘Evolutionary Arms Race’

Pre-vendian: primary producers (stromatolites)

Vendian / Ediacaran: primary producers, soft bodied animals, few scavengers, few grazers, few predators.

Earliest Cambrian: primary producers, soft and shelly bodied animals, some grazers, some scavengers, few predators.

Middle Cambrian: many shelly bodied animals, many grazers, scavengers, predators, all bottom dwelling, move into intertidal waters.

Ordovician: first floating, swimming, and burrowing animals. Three-fold increase in number of species. Most dramatic increase in diversity recorded during geologic history.

Shells, spines, and other skeletal parts, as well as swimming and burrowing, evolved in the context of increasing predation


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Madison, Indiana(photos by PD Polly)Bedrock Geology of Indiana. 2002.

H. H. Gray (data compiler). Indiana Geological Survey.


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Regional structure


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A typical orogenic episodeOc

eani

c Si

deContinental side


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Japan

China

Korea

Trench

Foreland

Basin

Pacific Plate

Eurasian Plate

Modern OrogenyMountains and Island Arcs


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From Potter, 2007, Exploring the Geology of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Region. Kentucky Geological Survey, Special Publication 8.

The Taconic Orogeny(Cambrian through Ordovician)Subduction zones shown in black


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The Taconic Orogeny

Late Ordovician

Late Cambrian

Early Cambrian


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Taconic orogeny shifted blocks of Precambrian basement to form Cincinnati Arch(Early Cambrian through Ordovician)


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Cross section through the Cincinnati Arch


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Meyer and Davis, 2009. A Sea Without Fish. IU Press, Bloomington.

Cincinnatian (Late Ordovician)paleogeography


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Meyer and Davis, 2009. A Sea Without Fish. Indiana U. Press, Bloomington.

Marine environments or facies of the CincinnatianA facies is a body of rock that has specific characteristics (sedimentary or faunal) because it was formed under specific sedimentary conditions.


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Photo 2008 by P. David Polly

US 421 road cut at Madison, IndianaContact between Dillsboro and Whitewater formations

Whitewater Fm.

Dillsboro Fm.


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Photos 2008, P. David Polly

Tabulate coral heads at the base of the Saluda Limestone (Whitewater Fm.)


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Stigall, 2010. Using GIS to assess the biogeographic impact of species invasions during the Richmondian invasion.

Palaeontologia Electronica, 13.1.5A.

Fossiliferous localities in the Cincinnati Arch


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The Cincinnati SchoolEarly paleontologists of the Ordovician (1840 – 1910)

Samuel A. MillerAttorney and scientist1837-1897

August Foerste (left), Dayton school teacher 1862-1936, and Ray Bassler (right), Smithsonian scientist 1878-1961, with Amadeus Grabau (center) New York paleontologist and stratigraphic geologist.

Charles SchuchertAmateur collector, later

Smithsonian scientist and Professor at Yale University

1858-1942


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Charles LyellVisits Cincinnati and the Ordovician* rocks there in 1842 (*thought of as Silurian in age at the time)

After seeing at Cincinnati several fine collections of recent and fossil shells in the cabinets of Messrs. Buchanan, Anthony, and Clark, I examined with care the quarries of blue limestone and marl in the suburbs. The organic remains here are remarkably well preserved for so ancient a rock, especially those occurring in a compact argillaceous blue limestone, not unlike the lias of Europe. …On both sides of the Atlantic, these ancient marine formations are characterized by a prodigious development of one peculiar family of mollusca, called brachiopoda…. --shells , which as they inhabit deep water, are little known, and have received no common name in our language.

-Lyell, 1845Travels in North America

Lyell later visited David Dale Owen in New Harmony in 1849.

Sir Charles LyellBritish geologist, author of

Principles of Geology1797-1875


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The Cincinnatian (painting by John Agnew from A Sea Without Fish: Life in the Ordovician Sea of the Cincinnati Region, D.L. Meyer and R.A. Davis, Indiana University Press.

Life in the Cincinnatian Seas

Horn coral(Cnidaria)

Jellyfish(Cnidaria)

Nautiloid(Mollusca)

Sea star(Echinodermata)

Crinoid(Echinodermata)

Bryozoan colony(Bryozoa)

Trilobite(Arthropoda)

Brachiopods(Brachiopoda)


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Sepkoski, J. J., 1992. Phylogenetic and ecologic patterns in the Phaneroic history of marine biodiversity. Pp. 77-97 in N. Eldredge (ed.), Systematics, Ecology, and the Biodiversity Crisis. Columbia University Press, New York.

Sepkoski’s three Evolutionary Faunas and five mass extinctions


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Stigall, 2010. Using GIS to assess the biogeographic impact of species invasions during the Richmondian invasion.

Palaeontologia Electronica, 13.1.5A.

The Richmondian InvasionChange in fossils in Late Ordovician related to rise in sea level


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Global Sea Level through the PhanerozoicFrom Hallam and Vail

• Low sea level in Cambrian• Rising through the Ordovician• Falling starting at Late Ordovician


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Taco

nic M

ount

ains

Transco

ntinental A

rch

(c) Ron Blakey (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/nam.html)

Middle Ordovician (470 mya)

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/nam.html



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Taco

nic M

ount

ains

(c) Ron Blakey (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/nam.html)

Late Ordovician (450 mya)




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Cincinnatian is a North American chronostratigraphic unit of Late Ordovician.

Taconic Orogeny created first mountain range along what is now the east coast during Cambrian and into Ordovician.

Cincinnati arch and associated basins formed during Taconic Orogeny.

Facies are different, contemporaneous sedimentary and life environments, often related to water energy level and water depth.

Different organisms live in different facies and the study of organisms across space and through time is both complicated and scientifically rewarding.

Changes in sea level changed water depth, facies, and geographic barriers, allowing the Richmondian Invasion of the Cincinnatian region.

Richmondian Invasion increased diversity by adding new species to paleocommunity.

End Ordovician extinction later decreased diversity.

Summary

Documents

Ordovician - paleoind.sitehost.iu.edu 9 - Ordovician and... · Department of Geological Sciences | Indiana University (c) 2012, P. David Polly Paleontology and Geology of Indiana