Volcanism and basalt weathering drove Ordovician climatic cooling

Abstract

Abstract Causal connections among major Ordovician environmental and biological events (i.e., long-term climatic cooling, Hirnantian Glaciation, Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, and Late Ordovician Mass Extinction) remain in debate, and the hypothesis of volcanism-driven long-term cooling is untested. Here, we present both newly generated and compiled literature data for global volcanic activity (Hg geochemistry), sea-surface temperatures (conodont oxygen isotopes), and chemical weathering intensity (conodont strontium isotopes). This dataset documents a ~25-Myr-long interval of climatic cooling (~470-445 Ma), commencing around the onset of the Middle Ordovician, intensifying during the Late Ordovician, and ultimately culminating in the Hirnantian Glaciation. Cooling was associated with long-term intensified volcanic rock (basalt) weathering and atmospheric pCO 2 drawdown, as well as episodic marine photic-zone euxinia, during and after major volcanic episodes. These relationships favor volcanism (i.e., continental large igneous provinces) as the primary driver of contemporaneous environmental and climatic changes, thus revealing complex modulation of life-environment coevolution during the Ordovician Period.