Walter C. Sweet

Late Ordovician mass extinction: A new perspective from stratigraphic sections in central Nevada

Integrated sequence stratigraphic, biostratigraphic, and chemostratigraphic analyses of three stratigraphic sections in central Nevada indicate that Late Ordovician glaciation-induced sea-level fall produced diachronous, stepwise faunal turnover in graptolites, conodonts, chitinozoans, and radiolarians, and also triggered a strong, but transient, positive δ13C excursion. This pattern is very different from that described for most mass extinction events.

CONODONTS: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

Abstract Conodonts were mostly small, elongate, eel-shaped marine animals that inhabited a variety of environments in Paleozoic and Triassic seas. Although long enigmatic, conodonts are now regarded as vertebrates and their closely controlled fossil record is not only the most extensive of all vertebrates, but it also makes conodonts the fossils of choice in upper Cambrian through Triassic biostratigraphy. Conodonts were soft-bodied except for a variety of phosphatic elements that formed a distinctive feeding apparatus. Post-mortal dissociation of the apparatus and subsequent jumbling of its elements on the sea floor led, from 1856 to about 1966, to development of an artificial, form-based taxonomy that was utilitarian, but clearly unsatisfactory as a vehicle for understanding the group in biologic terms. Natural assemblages of elements, discovered between 1879 and 1952, have been interpreted as undisturbed skeletal apparatuses, and in the mid-1960s it was determined that original composition of the apparatuses of many species could be reconstructed and statistically evaluated from collections of disjunct elements by various grouping procedures. These determinations led to an emphasis on multielement taxonomy by most (but not all) students of conodonts. Even so, only about a third of the approximately 550 valid conodont genera, have been established (or re-interpreted) in multielement terms and this makes any of the several extant schemes of suprageneric classification phylogenetically suspect. We comment on a recent scheme that recognizes 41 families assigned to some 7 orders, and suggest how it might be modified so as to square with principles of phylogenetic systematics.

CONODONTS AND BIOSTRATIGRAPHY OF UPPER ORDOVICIAN STRATA ALONG A SHELF TO BASIN TRANSECT IN CENTRAL NEVADA

Abstract Conodonts representing 38 species of 26 genera have been identified in samples from Upper Ordovician rocks at three central Nevada localities. Ranges of these species and associated graptolites are used graphically to determine correlation of the strata considered with an evolving composite standard that includes information from Ordovician strata at more than 100 localities in North America. Results indicate that the Hanson Creek Formation at Lone Mountain is latest Edenian through mid-Richmondian in age; that the Ordovician part of the Hanson Creek in the Monitor Range section spans an interval from Maysvillian through Richmondian; and that the upper 29 m of the Vinini Formation at the Vinini Creek locality is of mid-Maysvillian to late Richmondian age. Physical discontinuities in the Ordovician-Silurian boundary interval complicate correlations, but it is now clear that conodonts that range upward into, and have long been considered distinctive of the Lower Silurian, make their debut in central Nevada in an upper segment of the Upper Ordovician Normalograptus persculptus graptolite zone that may be latest Richmondian in age.

The American Upper Ordovician Standard: XIII A Revised Time-Stratigraphic Classification of North American Upper Middle and Upper Ordovician Rocks

Correlations, based on conodonts, between the Lexington, Kope and Clays Ferry Formations of the Cincinnati Region (Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana) and formations of the Trenton Group of New York and Ontario indicate that the base of the typical Edenian Stage and the top of the typical Shermanian Stage are at essentially the same biostratigraphic level. Hence, it can be shown that the upper part of the Trenton Group (Rust Member of Denley Limestone; Steuben and Hillier Limestones of Kay, 1968) is the same age as Edenian and lower Maysvillian strata in the type section of the Cincinnatian Series, and that the Edenian Stage (Cincinnatian) does not succeed the Cobourgian Stage (Champlainian) as has long been assumed. In fact, uppermost Cobourgian strata in New York are of demonstrably early Maysvillian age. Concepts of and names for Cincinnatian stages have not changed since at least 1915, but there are several systems of and no agreement on nomenclature for upper Champlainian time-stratigraphic units in New York and Ontario; also, none of the upper Champlainian stadial names in current use has priority over Edenian (1873), Maysvillian (1905) or Richmondian (1897). Thus, we propose that the top of the Champlainian Series be drawn at the top of the Shermanian Stage and that this be succeeded in the standard time-stratigraphic classification of the North American Ordovician by Edenian, Maysvillian, and Richmondian Stages, included col lectively in the Cincinnatian Series.

Kope Formation (Upper Ordovician): Ohio and Kentucky

Eden-like strata near Maysville, Kentucky, may be correlated with the Eden and lower Fairview formations of Cincinnati. To avoid the name Eden, which has stadial connotation, these rocks are included in the Kope formation, defined as medium-bedded limy shales (mean clastic ratio, 2.5 to 3.8) resting conformably between shaly Point Pleasant limestones (mean clastic ratio, 1.0) and unnamed shaly limestones (mean clastic ratio, 0.5).

Strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) stratigraphy of Ordovician bulk carbonate: Implications for preservation of primary seawater values

The present study on bulk carbonate 87 Sr/ 86 Sr stratigraphy represents a companion work to earlier research that presented a conodont apatite-based Ordovician seawater 87 Sr/ 86 Sr curve for the Tremadocian–Katian Stages (485–445 Ma). Here, we directly compare the curve based on conodont apatite (including some new data not published in earlier work) with a new curve based on 87 Sr/ 86 Sr results from bulk carbonate from the Tremadocian–Sandbian Stages. We sampled eight Lower to Upper Ordovician carbonate successions in North America to assess the reliability of bulk carbonate to preserve seawater 87 Sr/ 86 Sr and its utility for 87 Sr/ 86 Sr chemostratigraphy. A high-resolution 87 Sr/ 86 Sr curve based on 137 measurements of bulk conodont apatite is used as a proxy for seawater 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr seawater ). In total, 230 bulk carbonate samples that are paired to conodont samples were measured for 87 Sr/ 86 Sr in order to determine the conditions under which 87 Sr/ 86 Sr seawater is preserved in bulk carbonate. Results indicate that well-preserved bulk carbonate can faithfully record the 87 Sr/ 86 Sr seawater trend, but that its 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values are commonly more variable than those of conodont apatite. On average, bulk carbonate samples of the same age vary by 10–20 × 10 −5 , compared to 5–10 × 10 −5 for conodont apatite. The amount of isotopic alteration of bulk carbonate from seawater 87 Sr/ 86 Sr (Δ 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) was determined by taking the difference between 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values of bulk carbonate and the approximated seawater trend based on the least radiogenic conodont 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values. Cross plots comparing Δ 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values to bulk carbonate Sr concentration ([Sr]) and conodont color alteration indices (CAI; an estimate of the thermal history of a rock body) indicate that bulk carbonate is most likely to preserve 87 Sr/ 86 Sr seawater (minimally altered) when either: (1) bulk carbonate [Sr] is greater than 300 ppm, or (2) carbonate rocks experienced minimal thermal alteration, with burial temperatures less than ~150 °C. Carbonates with intermediate [Sr] (e.g., between 130 and 300 ppm) can also yield 87 Sr/ 86 Sr seawater values, but results are less predictable, and local diagenetic conditions may play a greater role. Modeling results support the argument that seawater 87 Sr/ 86 Sr can be preserved in bulk carbonates with low [Sr] if pore water:rock ratios are low ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr is similar to the seawater 87 Sr/ 86 Sr value preserved in limestone. Bulk carbonate samples that meet these criteria can be useful for high-resolution measurements of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr seawater , with a sample variation on par with fossil materials ( −5 ), particularly for successions where well-preserved fossil material (i.e., conodonts or brachiopods) is not available, such as Precambrian strata, sequences recording mass extinction events, or otherwise fossil-barren facies. These criteria and model predictions based on bulk carbonate [Sr] must be considered in the context of whether a limestone accumulated under calcite seas (e.g., Ordovician), with relatively high seawater Sr/Ca, or aragonite seas, in which case the diagenetic transformation of aragonite to calcite may result in incorporation of non-seawater Sr.