The Ordovician is a geologic period of the Paleozoic Era that follows the Cambrian and precedes the Silurian, spanning roughly 485 to 444 million years ago. It is characterized by extensive diversification of marine life, including brachiopods, trilobites, graptolites, and the first coral-stromatoporoid reef systems. Paleogeographically, continents were largely located in southern latitudes, with high sea levels producing widespread shallow epicontinental seas. The Ordovician ended with a major glaciation and associated mass extinction event, strongly linked to climatic cooling and sea-level fall, which significantly restructured marine ecosystems and marks the transition to the Silurian Period.
UC College of Arts and Sciences Professor Thomas Algeo has been studying the planet's five major mass extinctions since the Ordovician Period, when global sea levels were much higher than today. In a paper published in Nature ...
Evolution
Mar 3, 2026
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Pinpointing when early land plants colonized terrestrial environments and began influencing Earth's systems is a core question in the evolution of the Earth system. A research team led by Prof. Zhao Mingyu at the Institute ...
Evolution
Feb 25, 2026
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Scientists analyzing 443-million-year-old Scottish fossils have uncovered the early evidence that some of the first groups of vertebrates possessed surprisingly advanced eyes and traces of bone, reshaping our understanding ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jan 28, 2026
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Some 445 million years ago, life on Earth was forever changed. During the geological blink of an eye, glaciers formed over the supercontinent Gondwana, drying out many of the vast, shallow seas like a sponge and giving an ...
Evolution
Jan 9, 2026
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A research team led by Academician Jin Zhijun from the Institute of Energy, Peking University, has revealed how interactions between Earth's tectonic activity and astronomical cycles jointly shaped the planet's climate and ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 27, 2025
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The Ordovician Period stands as a critical chapter in Earth's geological history, with carbon isotope records serving as both a key tool for stratigraphic correlation and a vital archive to unravel the coevolution of ancient ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 16, 2025
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The explosion of animal life in Earth's oceans half a billion years ago during and after the Cambrian Period is commonly attributed to a substantial and sustained rise of free oxygen (O2) in seawater. Some researchers even ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 4, 2025
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The "Big Five" mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic Eon have long attracted significant attention from the geoscience community and the public. Among them, the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction (LOME) is the earliest of the ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 5, 2025
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