Late Ordovician paleoceanographic change: Sedimentary and geochemical evidence from Northwest Tarim and Middle Yangtze region, China

Abstract

Redox variation during the Late Ordovician were an important driver of palaeoceanographic and ecologic changes that may have eventually facilitated biotic extinction in the end of the Ordovician. Previously, the Late Ordovician paleoredox studies have focused mostly on the last 1–2 million years prior to the end of the Ordovician; redox conditions during the Sandbian–Katian time (early–middle Late Ordovician) are poorly understood. In order to fully evaluate the effects of palaeoceanographic variations on biotic evolutionary trends through the entire Late Ordovician, it is important to fully understand redox variations following the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) and prior to the end-Ordovician mass extinction. The present study reconstructs paleoredox conditions from the Sandbian–Katian successions of the Dawangou section, northwestern Tarim Basin, northwest China and the Puxihe section of the Middle Yangtze region, South China using pyrite framboidal and redox-sensitive element analyses. The distribution of volcanic microspherules, fossil fragment content and elemental analysis were also applied to reveal possible volcanisms and chemical weathering conditions, and to evoluate their effects on palaeoxygenation and biotic variations. The new results indicate three distinct periods of fluctuating paleoredox conditions during the Late Ordovician in the northwest Tarim and the Middle Yangtze regions, China. Overall, redox conditions varied from mainly oxic but punctuated by short-lived anoxic–dysoxic episodes to rapid fluctuations between reducing and oxidizing conditions, to persistent euxinic conditions. The varition of oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) that developed in the midwater column might be the main cause of anoxic events during the Sandbian–early Katian. Moreover, abundant volcanic microspheres, enhanced chemical weathering, decreasing fossil fragments of benthos, and positive europium anomaly from the study sections collectively indicate that intermittent volcanism during the early–middle Katian may have triggered anoxic-euxinic events during this interval. If integrating the newly obtained redox data with previously published data for the Katian to Hirnantian from the Middle Yangtze area, the long-term, stepwisely accelerated oxyen-poor conditions during the Late Ordovician may have facilitated biotic extinctions in the end of the Ordovician.