Jump to content

User:Abyssal/Portal:Ordovician

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The Ordovician Portal

Introduction

The Ordovician (/ɔːrdəˈvɪʃi.ən, -d-, -ˈvɪʃən/ or-də-VISH-ee-ən, -⁠doh-, -⁠VISH-ən) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 Ma (million years ago) to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 Ma.

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 Cambrian Period, although the end of the period was marked by the Ordovician–Silurian extinction events. Invertebrates, namely molluscs and arthropods, dominated the oceans, with members of the latter group probably starting their establishment on land during this time, becoming fully established by the Devonian. The first land plants are known from this period. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event considerably increased the diversity of life. Fish, the world's first true vertebrates, continued to evolve, and those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. About 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth per year during the Ordovician compared with today in a period known as the Ordovician meteor event. It has been theorized that this increase in impacts may originate from a ring system that formed around Earth at the time. (Full article...)

Show new selections below (purge)

Selected article on the Ordovician world and its legacies

A life restoration of an ostracoderm.
A life restoration of an ostracoderm.
A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups. Most fish are ectothermic ("cold-blooded"), allowing their body temperatures to vary as ambient temperatures change. Fish are abundant in most bodies of water. They can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams to even hadal depths of the deepest oceans. At 32,000 species, fish exhibit greater species diversity than any other group of vertebrates. Because the term "fish" is defined negatively, and excludes the tetrapods (i.e., the amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) which descend from within the same ancestry, it is paraphyletic, and is not considered a proper grouping in systematic biology.

The earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were soft-bodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessednotochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts. Fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era, diversifying into a wide variety of forms. Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor that protected them from predators. The first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many (such as sharks) became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. (see more...)

Selected article on the Ordovician in human science, culture and economics

Oil shale.
Oil shale.
Oil shale geology is a branch of geologic sciences which studies the formation and composition of oil shales–fine-grained sedimentary rocks containing significant amounts of kerogen, and belonging to the group of sapropel fuels. Oil shale formation takes place in a number of depositional settings and has considerable compositional variation. Oil shales can be classified by their composition (carbonate minerals such as calcite or detrital minerals such as quartz and clays) or by their depositional environment (large lakes, shallow marine, and lagoon/small lake settings). Much of the organic matter in oil shale is of algal origin, but may also include remains of vascular land plants. Three major type of organic matter (macerals) in oil shale are telalginite, lamalginite, and bituminite. Some oil-shale deposits also contain metals which include vanadium, zinc, copper, uranium.

Most oil shale deposits were formed during Middle Cambrian, Early and Middle Ordovician, Late Devonian, Late Jurassic, and Paleogene times through burial by sedimentary loading on top of the algal swamp deposits, resulting in conversion of the organic matter to kerogen by diagenetic processes. The largest deposits are found in the remains of large lakes such as the deposits of the Green River Formation of Wyoming and Utah, USA. Oil-shale deposits formed in the shallow seas of continental shelves generally are much thinner than large lake basin deposits. (see more...)

Selected image

A fossil of the trilobite Pliomerops escoti

A fossil of the trilobite Pliomerops escoti. This specimen dates back to the Ordovician period.
Photo credit: Didier Descouens

Did you know?

Life restoration of various thelodonts.
Life restoration of various thelodonts.

Need help?

Do you have a question about Abyssal/Portal:Ordovician that you can't find the answer to?

Consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.

Topics

Epochs - Early Ordovician - Middle Ordovician - Late Ordovician
Stages - Tremadocian - Floian - Dapingian - Darriwilian - Sandbian - Katian - Hirnantian
Events - Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event - Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event - Taconic orogeny - Late Ordovician glaciation - Alice Springs Orogeny - Ordovician–Silurian extinction event

Landmasses - Baltica - Gondwana - Laurentia - Siberia
Bodies of water - Iapetus Ocean - Khanty Ocean - Proto-Tethys Ocean - Rheic Ocean - Tornquist Sea - Ural Ocean
Animals - Articulate brachiopods - Bryozoans - Cornulitids - Crinoids - Cystoids - Gastropods - Graptolites - Jawed fishes - Nautiloids - Ostracoderms - Rugose corals - Star fishes - Tabulate corals - Tentaculitids - Trilobites
Trace fossils - Petroxestes - Trypanites
Plants - Marchantiophyta

Fossil sites - Beecher's Trilobite Bed - Walcott–Rust quarry
Stratigraphic units - Chazy Formation - Fezouata formation - Holston Formation - Kope Formation - Potsdam Sandstone - St. Peter Sandstone

Researchers - Charles Emerson Beecher - Charles Lapworth - Charles Doolittle Walcott
Culture - Animal Armageddon - List of creatures in the Walking with... series - Sea Monsters

Quality Content

Featured Ordovician articles - None
Good Ordovician articles - Brachiopod - Bryozoa - Chitinozoan - Marchantiophyta

Things you can do


Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Current Ordovician FACs - none currently

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Category:Ordovician portal ·