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Author:
Frisk, Åsa M (Uppsala University, Department of Earth Sciences) (Palaeobiology)
Title:
Late Ordovician Faunal Distribution and Ecospace Partitioning in Marine Impact Craters: The Aftermath of the Lockne and Tvären Events
Department:
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Department of Earth Sciences
Publication type:
Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Language:
English
Place of publ.:
Uppsala
Publisher:
Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis
Pages:
45
Series:
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology, ISSN 1651-6214; 685
Year of publ.:
2009
URI:
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-109605
Permanent link:
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-109605
ISBN:
978-91-554-7639-7
Subject category:
NATURAL SCIENCES
Keywords(en) :
impact crater, Lockne, Tvären, ecospace, the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event
Abstract(en) :

In the Middle to Late Ordovician a boost of marine biodiversity occurred which is regarded as the most rapid diversity in Earth’s history, and termed the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event. This time is also unique in that at least four marine meteorite craters with a good record of post-impact sediments are preserved in Baltoscandia. Catastrophic impacts can serve as constructive events and produce wide-ranging environments providing new ecological niches for a diverse biota to occupy. Additionally, they generate distinctive patterns of biological destruction and recovery. This, and the study of distribution and ecospace utilisation of Late Ordovician faunas, has been analysed in two almost contemporary (around 455 million years ago) meteorite craters (Lockne and Tvären, Sweden). Within the confined space of the impact craters environments varied from shallow and reef-like to over 200 m in depth and from well oxygenated to hypoxic. These types of environments favored colonization of different individual groups. In Tvären rhynchonelliformean brachiopod assemblages from the shallow crater rim include a range of morphotypes, not established elsewhere in the crater. Within the crater depression rhynchonelliformean brachiopods were not established until the upper third of the remaining crater fill. Colonization of post-impact faunas varies dependent on topography, depth and susbstrate within the impact craters. This is recognised for scolecodonts in Tvären and for gastropod-like mollusks, linguliform and craniiform brachiopods in both of the craters, as they inhabit a wide range of ecospace. A succession of different taxa is observed from the deepest part of each crater and upwards towards inferably more shallow, higher energy, water settings. The development of new community types and narrowly-defined niches in the craters helped further drive both α and β biodiversity during a critical phase of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.

Public defence:
2009-12-04, Axel Hambergsalen, Geocentrum, Villavägen 16, Uppsala, 10:00 (English)
Degree:
degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Supervisor:
Holmer, Lars, Professor (Uppsala University, Palaeobiology)
Ebbestad, Jan Ove, Docent (Uppsala University, Museum of Evolution)
Lindström, Maurits, Professor (Stockholm University)
Opponent:
Owen, Alan, Dr (University of Glasgow)
Available from:
2009-11-09
Created:
2009-10-20
Last updated:
2009-11-12
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