Coupled sedimentary and δ13C records of western Thailand and South China from Middle to Late Ordovician: Sea-level and climate changes prior to the Hirnantian glaciation

Abstract

The Middle to Late Ordovician sedimentary records are of great interest because they potentially contain critical signatures about triggers of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction. A long climate cooling has been proposed by some scholars, which may have initiated in Middle Ordovician and eventually culminated in the Late Ordovician (Hirnantian) glaciation; however, the origin, frequency, magnitude and duration of this cooling-glaciation event are still in debate. A sedimentary and multi-stratigraphic study of the Middle to Late Ordovician transition records may help reveal the evolutionary history of this great climate change. Here we document and correlate the sedimentary facies, conodont biostratigraphy and carbon isotope chemostratigraphy of latest Darriwilian through early Katian limestone successions in the Kanchanaburi area of western Thailand and in South China. This correlation reveals two remarkably cross-regional transgression events and their following sea-level highstand periods. The first transgression happened in the latest Darriwilian, leading to the deposition of the Tha Manao Formation of restricted carbonate facies at the Nautiloid Site Geopark in Thailand, Sibumasu Terrane, and the Miaopo and chert-rich Hulo formations of black shale facies in South China. The second transgression was initiated in the earliest Katian, forming the extensively distributed open-marine carbonates of the Pa Kae and Pagoda formations in platform settings, and the debrite-rich, deep-water carbonate of the Yenwashan Formation in slope settings. We also document coupled changes in depositional facies and carbon isotopic compositions, showing that the rising limb of the Guttenberg Isotopic Carbon Excursion (GICE) co-occurred with the second transgression period. The South China and Thailand Sibumasu records are comparable to those of many North American successions, indicating a presumably global sea-level rise in the early Katian, which may have been caused by the waning of the potential Darriwilian–Sandbian icecaps.