Date:
Tuesday, December 1, 2015, 12:30pm to 1:30pm
Location:
Haller Hall (Geology Museum 102)
"Understanding the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction: Problems and Progress"
by Seth Finnegan (UC Berkeley)
Abstract:
The Late Ordovician Mass Extinction was one of the largest extinction events in the history of the marine realm. The extinction has long been known to roughly coincide with major climatic and oceanographic transitions, but understanding of the causal mechanisms of extinction has been impeded by (1) uncertainties regarding the nature, timing, and magnitude of environmental changes, and (2) the lack of a clear pattern of selective extinction. I will discuss recent work that aims to overcome these limitations by integrating insights from geochemistry, macrostatigraphy, and paleobiogeography.