Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 331, Issue 6019, Pages 903-906Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1200803
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- Agouron Institute
- NSF Division of Earth Sciences
- Division Of Earth Sciences
- Directorate For Geosciences [1053523] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Understanding ancient climate changes is hampered by the inability to disentangle trends in ocean temperature from trends in continental ice volume. We used carbonate clumped isotope paleothermometry to constrain ocean temperatures, and thereby estimate ice volumes, through the Late Ordovician-Early Silurian glaciation. We find tropical ocean temperatures of 32 degrees to 37 degrees C except for short-lived cooling by similar to 5 degrees C during the final Ordovician stage. Evidence for ice sheets spans much of the study interval, but the cooling pulse coincided with a glacial maximum during which ice volumes likely equaled or exceeded those of the last (Pleistocene) glacial maximum. This cooling also coincided with a large perturbation of the carbon cycle and the Late Ordovician mass extinction.
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