ArticleScience advances2022
Rapid marine oxygen variability: Driver of the Late Ordovician mass extinction.
Article in Science advances, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Metamorphic sulfur release as a driver of sustained cooling and mass extinction.Science advances · 2026Article
- Dynamic redox-promoted iron and nutrient cycling drove graptolite evolution across the Ordovician-Silurian transition.Science advances · 2026Article
- Dynamic deep marine oxygenation during the Early and Middle Paleozoic.Science advances · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
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Abstract
The timing and connections between global cooling, marine redox conditions, and biotic turnover are underconstrained for the Late Ordovician. The second most severe mass extinction occurred at the end of the Ordovician period, resulting in ~85% loss of marine species between two extinction pulses. As the only "Big 5" extinction that occurred during icehouse conditions, this interval is an important modern analog to constrain environmental feedbacks. We present a previously unexplored thallium isotope records from two paleobasins that record global marine redox conditions and document two distinct and rapid excursions suggesting vacillating (de)oxygenation. The strong temporal link between these perturbations and extinctions highlights the possibility that dynamic marine oxygen fluctuations, rather than persistent, stable global anoxia, played a major role in driving the extinction. This evidence for rapid oxygen changes leading to mass extinction has important implications for modern deoxygenation and biodiversity declines.
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Registered trials
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