Silurian Period

Interval of geologic time, 443–417 million years ago.

The third period of the Paleozoic Era, the Silurian follows the Ordovician Period and precedes the Devonian. It marks the first appearance of land plants and jawed fishes. The continents were distributed as follows: Arctic Canada, Scandinavia, and Australia were probably in the tropics; Japan and the Philippines may have been inside the Arctic Circle; South America and Africa were likely near the South Pole, with either present-day Brazil or western Africa as the locus of the pole. The land surface was buried by an ice sheet, possibly as deep as that covering Antarctica today.

* * *

▪ geochronology

Introduction

 in geologic time, the third period of the Paleozoic Era. It began 443.7 million years ago and ended 416 million years ago, extending from the close of the Ordovician Period to the beginning of the Devonian Period.

      During the Silurian, continental elevations were generally much lower than in the present day, and global sea level was much higher. Sea level rose dramatically as the extensive glaciers (glacier) from the Late Ordovician ice age melted. This rising prompted changes in climatic conditions that allowed many faunal groups to recover from the extinctions of Late Ordovician times. Large expanses of several continents became flooded with shallow seas, and mound-type coral reefs (coral reef) were very common. Fishes (fish) were widespread. Vascular plants (plant) began to colonize coastal lowlands during the Silurian Period, whereas continental interiors remained essentially barren of life.

 The name of this period is derived from work done by Scottish geologist Roderick I. Murchison (Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey), who in 1835 named a sequence of rocks in Wales and its borderland with England in honour of a native people called the Silures. The Silures, under the leadership of Caratacus, resisted Roman conquest for 30 years until AD 78, when they were finally overcome.

The Silurian environment

paleogeography

 During most of the Silurian Period, the vast Panthalassic Ocean covered the northern polar regions, the supercontinent of Gondwana stretched over the southern polar region, and a ring of at least six continents spanned the Equator and middle latitudes. The approximate orientations and locations of Silurian continents can be reconstructed using a combination of paleomagnetic, paleoclimatic, and biogeographic (biogeography) data. The Earth's magnetic field (Earth) leaves its signature on volcanic rocks (igneous rock) and certain sedimentary rocks (sedimentary rock) rich in such iron-bearing minerals as magnetite. As rocks capable of being magnetized are cooled or otherwise lithified (lithification), their component crystals (grains) are lined up with the Earth's magnetic field. Unless the rocks are remelted by the heat from the planet's interior or reworked by erosion, they retain this signature regardless of whether they change position or not. The Earth's zonal climate also has an effect on global patterns of sedimentation.

      The most unusual features of the Silurian that distinguish it from the present-day physical environment relate to conditions of low continental elevations combined with a much higher global stand in sea level. Extensive continental regions were flooded by shallow seas ranging in water depth from a few to little more than 100 metres (330 feet). Where these seas occupied a tropical to subtropical climatic zone, coral mound reefs with associated carbonate (carbonate rock) sediments were very common. Strata forming in arid regions differ from those formed in inundated areas or other regions with high annual rainfall. The deposition of evaporites (evaporite) (salts) was periodically set in motion as a result of reduced ocean circulation occurring in geographically restricted places such as shallow embayments.

      The strong faunal endemism (the restriction or limiting of species to specific continents or isolated regions) present during the Ordovician Period was replaced during the Silurian Period by a situation where some species were distributed globally. Seafloor topography was muted over large areas of flooded continental platforms, and faunas of shelly invertebrates in different regions were remarkably consistent with one another. This has allowed geologists and stratigraphers to correlate layers of Silurian rock found on different present-day continents.

 The geographic summary that follows is based on a global reconstruction specific to the Wenlock (Wenlock Series) Epoch which spans the middle of the Silurian Period.

Laurentia

      Much of North America (including Greenland), northwestern Ireland, Scotland, and the Chukotskiy Peninsula of northeastern Russia belonged to the paleocontinent Laurentia (a name derived from Quebec's portion of the Canadian Shield). With respect to the present-day Great Lakes and Hudson Bay, Laurentia was rotated clockwise during Wenlock time to fit fully between the latitudes 30° N and 30° S of the paleoequator. The present south shore of Hudson Bay was at the centre of Laurentia, with the Wenlock paleoequator crossing near Southampton Island. The microcontinent of Barentsia, which included Norway's island of Svalbard, was likely appended to Laurentia off eastern Greenland. Island arcs and highland areas, such as Taconica (Taconic orogeny) (a landmass that would become part of eastern North America) and Pearya (a landmass that would become the northern part of Ellesmere Island), rimmed the flooded continent. During the Llandovery (Llandovery Series) and Wenlock (Wenlock Series) epochs, more than 65 percent of Laurentia was flooded by shallow seas.

Baltica

      The narrow, north-south Iapetus Ocean still separated Laurentia from another paleocontinent, Baltica, during Wenlock time. The Uralian and Variscan-Hercynian sutures—regions where earlier orogenies (orogeny) (mountain-building events) had welded landmasses together—marked the eastern and southern margins of this paleocontinent. The northern tip of Scandinavia was situated just below the paleoequator during the Wenlock Epoch, but the islands of Novaya Zemlya extended well to the north. The most prominent features were the Caledonian highlands of Norway, although a lowland attributed to the Fennoscandian Shield (rocks of Precambrian origin underlying the present-day Baltic Sea, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Finland) existed in the vicinity of Finland. Another lowland within Baltica is related to the Sarmatian Shield, in the region between the Vistula (Vistula River) and Volga (Volga River) rivers in Poland and adjacent Russia. The microcontinent of Avalonia—its name derived from the Avalon Peninsula of eastern Newfoundland—was appended to Baltica by the end of Ordovician time. It included what are now England, Wales, southeastern Ireland, the Belgian Ardennes, northern France, eastern Newfoundland, part of Nova Scotia, southern New Brunswick, and coastal New England.

Siberia, Kazakhstania, and other continents

      Separated from Baltica by the Pleionic Ocean (essentially the northwestern arm of the Paleotethys Sea), the paleocontinent of Siberia assumed an orientation rotated 180° from its present alignment (as recognized by the inverted position of Lake Baikal (Baikal, Lake)). A huge Siberian platform sea extended southward. Similarly, Kazakhstania was a neighbouring continent to the east in the same northern middle latitudes. North China (including Manchuria and Korea) and South China (the Yangtze platform) were two separate continents situated in a more equatorial position. In contrast to Siberia and Kazakhstania, most of North and South China were elevated above sea level during Wenlock time.

Gondwana

      The vast supercontinent of Gondwana was centred over the South Pole. In addition to Australia, Antarctica, India, Arabia, Africa, and South America, Silurian Gondwana also included smaller pieces of Florida, southern Europe, and the Cimmerian terranes—namely, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Tibet, and the Malay Peninsula—on its outer fringes. Either present-day Brazil or contiguous West Africa was stationed directly over the South Pole, buried by an ice cap likely comparable in size to the one capping Antarctica today. During Wenlock time, India, Tibet, the Malay Peninsula, and Australia projected into subtropical or tropical latitudes. The east-west ocean separating the southern European sector of Gondwana from northern Europe (Baltica) is called the Rheic Ocean and was essentially a southwestern extension of the Paleotethys Sea. The flooded margin of eastern Australia had a more-varied seafloor topography than the other shallow seas because of the extensive volcanism occurring there during Silurian time, but it shared many of the same faunal elements because of its tropical latitude.

Paleoclimate (paleoclimatology)

Atmospheric circulation

      Broad-scale Silurian climatic conditions can be inferred by determining the positions and orientations of the paleocontinents and assuming that atmospheric circulation functioned according to the same basic principles during Silurian times as it does today. The global paleoclimate was effectively driven by major contrast in the proportions of land and water between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. A zonally uniform climate would be expected in the Northern Hemisphere during the Silurian, because it was dominated by a North Polar ocean. Wind patterns must have included strong polar easterlies at high northern latitudes, prevailing westerlies at midlatitudes, and northeast trade winds in the tropics. In contrast, with Gondwana centred over the South Pole, climate in the Southern Hemisphere must have been dominated by the interaction of cellular air masses (air mass) over land and water. The large continent would have experienced wide temperature variations due to summer heating and winter cooling.

      Atmospheric circulation patterns interpreted for an early Silurian summer in the Northern Hemisphere indicate high pressure over the polar ocean with a zone of low pressure around 60° N latitude. Distinct high-pressure cells formed above subtropical oceans, much like the persistent Bermuda high-pressure centre over the present subtropical North Atlantic. Another zone of low pressure formed above the thermal equator, or the region of most intense solar warming. This somewhat migratory zone was the Silurian intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), where the convergence of Northern and Southern Hemispheric trade winds caused the warm tropical air to rise, which in turn produced regular cloud cover and precipitation.

      Mostly, the ITCZ remained near the Equator, but it may have migrated slightly to the north in response to strong summer heating on Laurentia, Baltica, and possibly Kazakhstania. This tendency would have been strongest along the eastern margins of tropical continents, where anticyclonic circulation (anticyclone) around subtropical highs pulled warm, moisture-laden air northwestward from equatorial oceans. Subtropical high pressure probably spread onto Gondwana, particularly the Australian and Antarctic sectors. A pressure ridge may have merged with these subtropical highs to form a massive cold cell penetrating to higher latitudes over the continental interior of Gondwana. Low-pressure systems over Gondwana's midlatitude shelf were not unlike the Aleutian and Icelandic lows (Icelandic low) of today.

      Pressure systems should have moved somewhat southward during the Northern Hemispheric winter—particularly the ITCZ, which generally follows the region of maximum heating to the Southern Hemisphere during this season. A low-pressure system between Laurentia and Baltica is consistent with the erosion of thick clastic rocks (sedimentary rock composed of fragments of older rocks) derived from the Taconic and Caledonian highlands. The most significant seasonal variation surely occurred in the eastern Australian and Antarctic sectors of Gondwana, where summer heating abolished winter high-pressure cells and pulled the ITCZ more poleward. This is comparable to today's monsoons (monsoon), which pull the ITCZ in the opposite direction over the subcontinent of India during the Northern Hemispheric summer. Subtropical highs intensified over the ocean waters of the Southern Hemisphere and probably insulated the arid climate of Western Australia.

Oceanic anoxia

      The broadly flooded shelf of Gondwana had a circumference of at least 28,000 km (17,400 miles), most of which sat in the belt of persistent westerly winds. This had the effect of producing intense surface upwelling (marine ecosystem) of oceanic waters along the margins of the supercontinent and significantly boosting biological productivity. After the organisms living in these waters died, their remains sank into a bottom layer of water characterized by low levels of dissolved oxygen. This dearth of oxygen (anoxia) significantly decelerated the decomposition process, thereby providing the right conditions for the development of black shales (black shale). Today, black shale deposits are widespread around the perimeter areas of the former supercontinent, as evidenced by the rich source rocks yielding concentrations of Silurian oil in present-day Algeria and Saudi Arabia.

Silurian life

 Marine benthic (bottom-dwelling) invertebrates (invertebrate) of the Silurian Period belonged to persistent assemblages, or communities, that commonly conformed to ecological zonation. One way in which zonation expresses itself is through bathymetric gradients (changes in light, temperature, salinity, and pressure with depth).Paleoecologists studying in Wales, Norway, Estonia, Siberia, South China, and North America have used very similar models to explain the geographic distribution of Silurian communities. Some of these communities were adapted to life under conditions of stronger sunlight and more vigorous wave energy in shallow nearshore waters; others were restricted to darker, quieter environments in deeper offshore waters.

Pentamerid communities

 The Pentamerus community was an early Silurian community dominated by the large-shelled brachiopod (lamp shells) (lamp shell (lamp shells)) of the species Pentamerus oblongus. The community often included 5 to 20 associated species, although enormous populations of only one species sometimes are found preserved in growth position. The Pentamerus community and its slightly older and younger equivalents dominated by similar pentamerid species in the genera Virgiana, Borealis, Pentameroides, and Kirkidium all occupied a bathymetric zone of medium water depth. These pentamerid communities are known to have lived in sunlit waters because they are associated with robust, calcareous green algae. The waters were not too shallow, however, because pentamerid brachiopods lost their pedicle (the fleshy appendage that tethers the shell to the seafloor) as they matured, and thus unsecured populations were vulnerable to disruption by steady wave activity. The pentamerid communities thrived within depths of perhaps 30 to 60 metres (100 to 200 feet). This was below the level of normal (fair weather) wave activity but still in reach of storm waves. At their lower depth limit, the pentamerid communities were out of reach of all but the most intense and infrequent storms.

      In regions such as Wales that are characterized by clastic rock deposition, an onshore-offshore array of five brachiopod-dominated communities may be mapped in belts running parallel to the ancient shoreline. Listed in order from shallowest to deepest position, they are the Lingula, Eocoelia, Pentamerus, Stricklandia, and Clorinda communities. Below a relatively steep gradient, the centre of the Welsh Basin was filled by graptolitic (graptolite) shales (shale).

 Other areas, such as the Laurentian and Siberian platforms, characterized by carbonate (carbonate rock) deposition, typically developed a continuum of coral-stromatoporoid, Pentamerus, and Stricklandia communities. (Stromatoporoids are large colonial marine organisms similar to hydrozoans.) Clorinda communities were rare in this setting. Stricklandia communities sometimes included smaller, less-robust individuals of calcareous green algae, indicating a slightly deeper-water environment than that occupied by the Pentamerus community. Coral-stromatoporoid communities, which sometimes formed reef mounds, preferred wave-agitated waters shallower than 30 metres (100 feet). Much like the reef communities of today, they could not tolerate the more excessive rates of sedimentation typical of clastic settings. Bathymetric relief on carbonate platforms was very gentle; the full spectrum of available communities was likely often expressed over a gradient hundreds of kilometres long. In contrast, the bathymetric gradient on the Welsh shelf was no more than a few tens of kilometres long. Like the Pentamerus community, the other early Silurian communities have ecological equivalents that took their place in later Silurian time.

Reef mounds and coral biostromes

 Reef mounds (bioherms (bioherm)) provided the Silurian seafloor with an organically constructed microtopography featuring zonations of segregated brachiopods, gastropods (gastropod) (class of mollusk containing present-day snails (snail) and slugs (slug)), crinoids (crinoid) (class of echinoderm containing present-day sea lilies (sea lily) and feather stars (feather star)), and trilobites (trilobite). The Thornton Reef Complex outside Chicago is an example of a well-zoned Wenlock complex more than 1 km (0.6 mile) in diameter. Others are well known from the Silurian of Manitoulin Island (Ontario, Can.), northern Greenland, Shropshire (Eng.), Gotland (Swed.), Estonia, the central and southern Urals of Russia, and Siberia. The most spectacular complex is a barrier reef 350 km (215 miles) long of late Llandovery (Llandovery Series)–early Wenlock (Wenlock Series) age in northern Greenland.

      Reefs of all Silurian ages are known, but their development probably reached a climax during Wenlock time. Several thousand bioherms have been recognized from outcrop and subsurface evidence across a tract of 800,000 square km (309,000 square miles) surrounding the Great Lakes region of North America. Quite distinct from the Silurian reef mounds are concentrations of tabulate corals and lamellar stromatoporoids that lived in shallow water on a level seafloor. The resulting accumulations are flat-layered (biostromal) in design. The tabulate corals are often dominated by species belonging to the genera Favosites (honeycomb corals) and Halysites (chain corals) and by tabulate corals of the genera Syringopora and Heliolites. The associated stromatoporoids are essentially armoured sponges, the lamellar construction of which commonly lends them a pancake shape.

      The creation of global biozones (biozone) of different organisms is also evident in Silurian sedimentary deposits. The rich benthic faunas just described were tropical to subtropical in distribution. The southern temperate zone, sometimes called the Malvinokaffric Realm, is represented by the low-diversity Clarkeia (brachiopod) fauna from Gondwanan Africa and South America. A northern temperate zone is represented by the low-diversity Tuvaella (brachiopod) fauna mostly restricted to Mongolia and adjacent parts of Siberia. The Tuvaella fauna also has been discovered in northwestern China, which apparently represents a more southern extension, since it straddled the paleoequator during the Silurian Period.

Fishes (fish)

 Fishes representative of all Silurian ages were widely distributed in marine environments (carbonate and clastic) in a broad belt within the latitudes 40° N and 40° S of the paleoequator. They are known from fossils of individual scales as well as from rare body molds. A wide variety of agnatha (agnathan) (jawless) fishes are represented by species belonging to the orders Thelodonti, Heterostraci, Osteostraci, and Anaspida. Fishes with a primitive jaw apparatus are represented by members of the subclasses Acanthodii, Elasmobranchii, and Actinopterygii. Different endemic groups developed in Laurentia (known widely from sites in the Canadian Arctic, the Yukon, Pennsylvania, New York, and especially Scotland), Baltica (especially Norway and Estonia), and Siberia (including adjacent Mongolia).

Vascular land plants

      Land colonization by vascular plants (plant) was under way during most of the Silurian Period, although activity clearly was restricted to coastal lowlands—the remainder of the land being essentially barren. These plants were small (about 6 cm, or 2.4 inches, in height), with smooth, simply branched stems bearing spore sacs at their tips. photosynthesis took place entirely within the leafless stems. Plant megafossils preserved as coalified impressions are fragmentary. Their known distribution includes most of the Silurian continents with limited representation on Laurentia (New York and northern Greenland), Baltica (Avalonian Wales and England, as well as Podolia in what is now southwestern Ukraine), the Siberian corner of Sinkiang (northwestern China), and some Australian and North African sectors of Gondwana (Victoria and Libya, respectively). Latitudinal distribution apparently ranged from about 45° N (Siberia) to 30° S (Libya). Species belonging to the genus Cooksonia were among the first and most successful vascular land plants found in all the above-cited areas except for northern Greenland and Australia. A distinctly endemic group is represented by the genus Baragwanathia during Ludlow (Ludlow Series) times in Victoria, Austl.

Extinctions (extinction)

Late Ordovician mass extinction

      Early Silurian marine faunas recovered from a mass extinction brought on during late Ordovician (Ordovician Period) times by climatic change and lowered sea levels. This mass extinction claimed 26 percent of all marine invertebrate families and 60 percent of all marine invertebrate genera. Only 17 percent of late Ordovician brachiopod genera survived the start of the Silurian Period, but 20 out of 70 tabulate and heliolitoid coral genera (29 percent) and 45 out of 71 trilobite genera (63 percent) successfully made the same transition.

Silurian extinctions

      During the Silurian, several small extinction and radiation events in the evolution of nektonic (free-swimming) and pelagic (free-floating) organisms appear to be linked to fluctuations in sea level. Ten individual extinction events for graptolites alone are recorded in the rock layers of the Silurian Period, during which time 52 to 79 percent of these planktonic animals disappeared. Most of these events correspond to drops in sea level. Among conodonts (conodont) (toothlike remains of primitive chordates), a significant radiation was indicated by species within the Pterospathodus amorphognathoides biozone, which straddles the Llandovery-Wenlock boundary and includes the late Telychian Age (Llandovery Epoch (Llandovery Series)) highstand. Extinction of key species followed by the emergence of several new species during early Sheinwoodian time (Wenlock Epoch (Wenlock Series)) was one of the most drastic changes in Silurian conodont succession.

      Acritarchs are a catchall group of various small microfossils that may represent the pelagically dispersed spore cases of benthic algae. Four major turnovers in Silurian acritarch species are recognized. Among those coinciding with highstands in sea level, the turnovers of the mid-Aeronian Age (Llandovery Epoch) and early Gorstian Age (Ludlow Epoch) are the most extensive. The various nektonic and pelagic organisms may have been affected by changes in water temperature related to minor episodes of glaciation.

Silurian geology

Distinctive features

 Silurian formations widely scattered around the world display a wealth of natural beauty. Niagara Falls and the 11-km (7-mile) Niagara Gorge on the Canadian-U.S. border are products of erosion that continue to be sculpted by rushing waters undercutting the soft shale beneath a ledge of more-resistant Silurian dolomite.

      The Niagara Escarpment is a curved ridge of resistant Silurian dolomite stretching more than 1,000 km (about 600 miles) from Niagara Falls through Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Wisconsin's Door Peninsula and beyond. This resistant feature stands as much as 125 metres (400 feet) above the Great Lakes, which were shaped by the excavation of soft shales during the glaciations of the Pleistocene Epoch. In Ontario the Niagara Escarpment fringes the eastern and northern sides of Lake Huron, and it is recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a biosphere reserve. A continuous footpath follows the Niagara Escarpment for 800 km (about 500 miles) from Queenston Heights, Ont., in the Niagara Falls area to the tip of the Bruce Peninsula at Tobermory, Ont.

      Other notable manifestations of Silurian rock include the rolling hills of eastern Iowa and central and southern Indiana, as well as similar rounded hills, called klintar, that dot the island landscape of Gotland, Swed., where Silurian mound reefs reach the surface. These ancient reef deposits have been eroded into remarkable shapes where they surface near the modern seacoast. The renowned naturalist Carolus Linnaeus (Linnaeus, Carolus) sketched in his field notebook the bizarre shapes of “stone giants”—large limestone sea stacks, 8 to 10 metres (about 26 to 33 feet) high, which still stand in ranks along the shores of Gotland at Kyllej.

      Some of Norway's beautiful inland fjords (fjord), such as Tyrifjorden, northwest of Oslo, are lined by Silurian shales and limestones. Long, graceful curves made by the Dniester River in Ukraine and the Moiero (Moyyero) River in Siberia cut through high bluffs of Silurian limestone and marl. Picturesque sea cliffs formed by Silurian clastic rocks guard the coasts of Ireland's Dingle Peninsula. Australia's Kalbarri National Park features gorges on the Murchison River, which winds to bold sea cliffs on the Indian Ocean, all set in Silurian Tumblagooda sandstone. The partly Silurian Tabuk Formation forms vast desert stretches in Saudi Arabia. At an elevation of 6,000 metres (19,700 feet), the Spiti River valley in India's Himalayan region is lined partly by limestone and quartzite belonging to the Muth Formation.

Economic significance of Silurian deposits

       petroleum and natural gas are the most notable resources found in Silurian strata. The organic material buried in Silurian source rocks constituted about 9 percent of the world's known reserves in oil and gas when last surveyed in the 1990s. The most important fields that yield oil traceable to Silurian source rocks are located in Saudi Arabia, accounting for 74 percent of Silurian stock. In particular, the Qalibah Formation, which reaches a subsurface thickness of 955 metres (3,133 feet) in central Saudi Arabia, is believed to be the source of the low-sulfur, high-gravity oil pumped from younger reservoir rocks in that part of the world. The Erg Oriental and Erg Occidental in southern Algeria are the location of additional fields related to Silurian source rocks, accounting for an additional 20 percent of Silurian petroleum stock. A minor amount of petroleum is associated with Silurian reef structures in the Michigan Basin of the north-central United States.

      A substantial quantity of Silurian salt is mined. Silurian limestones or dolomites (the later altered from limestone by partial secondary substitution of magnesium for calcium) are widely quarried for crushed rock.

      Aside from oil and gas, the economic significance of Silurian raw materials is mostly of historical relevance. Industrial iron production first began in the Severn River (Severn, River) valley in Shropshire, Eng., where the necessary mineral ore, coal, and limestone were all available. Limestone provided the fluxing agent necessary for the manufacture of iron and was locally quarried from Wenlock (Wenlock Series) strata. The construction in 1779 of the world's first iron bridge, on the River Severn, is regarded as the starting point of the Industrial Revolution, and Ironbridge Gorge (Ironbridge) was named in 1986 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

      The English iron industry later shifted to the Birmingham area, where the Wenlock Limestone continued to be exploited for this purpose. A major underground canal system was built at Dudley in order to facilitate limestone mining.

      A similar juxtaposition of raw materials led to the industrial development of Birmingham, Ala., in the southeastern United States. Again, Silurian rocks provided one of the key ingredients—this time, hematite ore from the Llandovery (Llandovery Series) Red Mountain Formation, which was mined from 1862 to 1971. A third unusual site in this regard is the ghost town of Fayette in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It was founded as a company town in 1867 because local resources offered an abundance of Silurian dolomite for use in iron smelting (iron processing). At the opposite end of the Upper Peninsula, on Drummond Island, dolomite from the Wenlock Engadine Group is still quarried on a large scale for this specialized industrial use.

Major subdivisions of the Silurian System

 The rocks that originated during the Silurian Period make up the Silurian System, which is divided into four rock series corresponding to four epochs of time: the Llandovery Series (443.7–428.2 million years ago), made up of the Rhuddanian (443.7–439 million years ago), Aeronian (439–436 million years ago), and Telychian (436–428.2 million years ago) stages; the Wenlock Series (428.2–422.9 million years ago), made up of the Sheinwoodian (428.2–426.2 million years ago) and Homerian (426.2–422.9 million years ago) stages; the Ludlow Series (422.9–418.7 million years ago), made up of the Gorstian (422.9–421.3 million years ago) and Ludfordian (421.3–418.7 million years ago) stages; and the Pridoli Series (418.7–416 million years ago; the Pridoli Series has not been divided into stages). The names of the Llandovery, Wenlock, and Ludlow series correspond to historical units originally proposed by Murchison (see below Early work (Silurian Period)). They are now rigorously defined in terms of basal stratotypes (assemblages of certain fossils whose first occurrence in the stratigraphic column defines the beginning of a particular time interval). For example, the upper boundary of the Wenlock Series occurs where specific index fossils signifying the base of the Ludlow Series first appear. The last of the four series, the Pridoli (Pridoli Series), takes its name from an area outside Prague.

Significant geologic events

Effects of Late Ordovician glaciation

 Dramatic unconformities (interruptions in the deposition of sedimentary (sedimentary rock) rock) between the Silurian and Ordovician (Ordovician Period) systems indicate how extreme the glacially induced drawdown in late Ordovician sea level had been. The maximum global fall in sea level was on the order of 70 metres (about 230 feet) and drained immense areas of former marine habitat. River valleys were eroded into Upper Ordovician marine shales (shale) stretching across Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois on the Laurentian platform. On Baltica, carbonate (carbonate mineral) reef mounds in Sweden were transformed into karst surfaces through subareal exposure; a network of extensive tidal channels was developed across a formerly much deeper shelf in Wales. Close to the edge of the Gondwanan (Gondwana) ice sheet in Saudi Arabia, the Jabal Sarah paleovalley was deeply cut into by glacial outwash streams eroding through Ordovician shales to a depth of 275 metres (900 feet). Ordovician-Silurian paleovalleys in the Middle East show much more topographic relief than their counterparts in Laurentia and Baltica away from the ice cap. Ice loading and isostatic (isostasy) rebound during the melting period near the end of the glacial event were the contributing factors to excessive erosion around the margins of the Gondwanan supercontinent.

      Coastal valleys and rocky shores on all paleocontinents were eventually filled and buried with the return of marine sedimentation (marine sediment) in early Silurian time. Basal Silurian strata virtually everywhere record a rapid rise in the level of the sea, which reflooded vast continental platforms.

Silurian sea level

      Smaller fluctuations in sea level, between 30 and 50 metres (about 100 and 165 feet) in magnitude, continued to occur on a global basis throughout the Silurian. In contrast to the Late Ordovician event, these fluctuations did not strongly affect the shelly bottom-dwelling invertebrates perched on continental platforms. Benthic faunas adapted to their changing living conditions at particular bathymetric (bathymetry) levels by simply shifting upslope or downslope. The amount of available habitat space was not drastically altered as a result of these sea level fluctuations.

      Data from three or more different paleocontinents indicate that at least four global highstands (intervals where sea level lies above the continental shelf edge) took place during Llandovery time. Sea level fluctuations are reconstructed by studying biological community replacement patterns through well-exposed stratigraphic sequences and then comparing the timing of trends on an interregional to intercontinental basis. These cycles of rising and falling sea levels had an average duration of about 2.5 million years during the Llandovery Epoch. The first event probably corresponds to the maximum rise in sea level achieved as the extensive Late Ordovician glaciers melted. This highstand occurred during the transition between the Rhuddanian and Aeronian Stages of Llandovery time. A second highstand is mid-Aeronian in age, the third early Telychian, and the fourth late Telychian.

      Present data are not as complete for the rest of the Silurian, but a highstand in sea level has been identified during the middle of the Wenlock Epoch. A mid-Ludlow lowstand in sea level separates an early Ludlow highstand from at least one subsequent Ludlow highstand. Information on sea level changes during the Pridoli Epoch is fragmentary and globally inconsistent.

      Late Silurian lowstands were sufficient to downgrade ocean circulation patterns and stimulate widespread evaporite deposition in Laurentia, Baltica, Siberia, and the Australian sector of Gondwana. Some of these bathymetric changes, which were brought about by submarine volcanism or by the tectonic (tectonics) elevation or subsidence of the seafloor, were clearly local, rather than global, in effect. Those sea level fluctuations recorded on different paleocontinents during the same interval of geologic time may have been coordinated by minor changes in the size of the surviving Gondwanan ice cap. South American tillites (tillite) interpreted as Llandovery in age lend support to this model. Global drawdown in sea level is linked directly to evidence for the onset of at least three successive glacial episodes in the Brazilian sector of Gondwana, for example.

Occurrence and distribution of Silurian deposits

      Excluding peat and coal, which form from vegetation, the same kinds of strata in the process of forming today were also deposited during Silurian time. Because of the high sea level coupled with the low relief of many continents, production of certain Silurian sediments (sedimentary rock) was proportionately different than that in the present world, however. Chief among these are limestones (limestone), which form primarily from the carbonate (carbonate mineral) detritus of coral skeletons, shells, and calcified algae. Unless such detritus is produced in great quantities or rapidly buried, it tends to dissolve in cold (temperate to polar) waters. In warm (tropical to subtropical) shallow waters, carbonates may collect more gradually to form continuous layers of limestone. The geographic locations of Laurentia, Baltica, and in part Siberia within 30° latitude on either side of the Silurian equator ensured the development of extensive platform carbonates. In North America, Silurian limestones or dolomites are found across an enormous territory stretching along one axis from northern Greenland to West Texas and along another axis from Quebec's Anticosti Island to the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada. Parts of Baltica where carbonate deposition was prevalent include Gotland in Sweden, Estonia, and the Ukrainian region of Podolia; carbonate deposition was also prevalent over much of Siberia. Platform carbonates of this kind rarely exceed 200 to 300 metres (about 650 to 1,000 feet) in thickness. Other important limestone units that were more-restricted in Silurian time and space include the Wenlock Limestone (Shropshire, Eng.), the Ryterraker Formation (southern Norway), the Xiangshuyan Formation and lateral equivalents (South China), and the Hume Limestone (New South Wales, Austl.).

Evaporites (evaporite)

      Evaporites (evaporite), including salt ( halite), anhydrite, and gypsum, are chemical precipitates that usually accumulate as layers through evaporation of marine waters isolated in shallow bays. This process is most effective under warm, arid climate conditions commonly found at latitudes of about 30° or less. Distributed through parts of Michigan, Ohio, and New York, strata from the Upper Silurian Salina Group laid down during the Ludlow and Pridoli Epochs is one of the world's most famous evaporite deposits. A maximum aggregate thickness of 600 metres (1,970 feet) occurs in Michigan, where one individual halite bed reaches a thickness of l65 metres (540 feet). A halite bed 2 metres (6.6 feet) thick occurs in the Interlake Formation formed during the Wenlock Epoch in North Dakota. Gypsiferous beds occur in parts of the Upper Silurian Yangadin and Holuhan formations of Siberia, as well as in comparable formations in Latvia and Lithuania. Upper Silurian evaporites from the Pridoli Epoch are characteristic of three different basins in Western Australia. Minor amounts of halite and anhydrite occur in the Dirk Hartog Formation in the Carnarvon Basin; more extensive halite or anhydrite beds or those of both have been discovered in comparable formations from the Canning and Bonaparte Gulf basins.

Clastic rocks

Clastic wedges

      Clastic rocks, including conglomerates (conglomerate), sandstones (sandstone), and shales, generally occur in wedge-shaped deposits adjacent to land areas from which terrigenous materials (items derived from the erosion of land) erode under conditions of moderate to high annual rainfall. With steady accumulation over protracted periods of time, such deposits tend to become very thick and subside under their own weight, forming troughlike structures parallel to their sediment source. In contrast to thin platform deposits, clastic wedges may be thousands of metres—more than 1 km (0.6 mile)—thick. Taconica was a long narrow highland roughly corresponding to the present position of the Appalachian Mountains in North America. During the Llandovery Epoch these highlands shed the Shawangunk Conglomerate (500 metres, or 1,640 feet, thick) near its front in southeastern New York state and distributed the Tuscarora-Clinch sandstones (150 to 250 metres, or about 490 to 820 feet, thick) throughout central Pennsylvania and western Virginia from more than 80 km (about 50 miles) beyond its front. These deposits accrued from sediments carried by braided streams (a series of converging and diverging streams) crossing coastal plains to a wave-swept shore. Arthrophycus trails (those made by annelids (annelid) tolerant of low salinity) are recorded in the more seaward portions of the Tuscarora Sandstone. Collectively attributed to the Clinton Group, a variety of Upper Llandovery rocks with high iron content subsequently were deposited from New York to Alabama. These strata often contain marine fossils, but their iron was derived from Taconica. Tiny pellets, or oolites (oölite) (rock composed of small calcium grains), coated with hematite occur in seams up to 2 metres (about 6.6 feet) thick in New York; massive iron-rich sandstones are found in Pennsylvania; and oolitic ironstone beds up to 15 metres (50 feet) thick occur in Alabama (in the Red Mountain Formation).

      Evidence of another Laurentian highland, called Pearya, is found in the Canadian Arctic in the vicinity of northern Ellesmere Island. Clastic sediments eroded from this source were deposited in the Hazen Trough. One Lower Silurian (Llandovery) unit called the Danish River Formation is composed of interstratified conglomerates, sandstones, and shales 1 km (about 0.6 mile) thick. The Caledonian (Caledonian orogenic belt) highlands dominated depositional patterns on the paleocontinent of Baltica. Much of the highland front followed approximately the present spine of Norway and affected a broader area through generation of river-transported sandstones that gradually spread across Sweden to Poland in one direction and through northern England to southeastern Ireland in the other direction. Known traditionally as the Old Red Sandstone, these rocks date back to the Ludlow Epoch in southern Norway, mixed with those of the Pridoli Epoch and early Devonian (Devonian Period) times in northern England, and early Devonian age in southeastern Ireland and Poland. This variation in age reflects the growth of the Caledonian highlands and their ability to shed clastic debris farther and farther afield. In Western Australia, similar thick red sandstones belonging to the Upper Silurian Tumblagooda Sandstone were derived from a Precambrian massif called the Yilgarn Block.

      In contrast to sandstones that accumulated because of river transport, eolian (wind-driven) sandstones are those deposited under desert conditions. The Mereenie Sandstone in central Australia (Amadeus Basin) is one of the few examples of a possible Silurian desert sandstone.

Platform margins

      In addition to clastic wedges closely linked to a land source, Silurian shales (shale) also formed on continental platform margins, as in the nearly 500 metres (1,640 feet) of strata belonging to the Road River Group in the Canadian Yukon. Based on sections in the Mackenzie Mountains, a distance of only one to a few kilometres separated the edge of a shallow-water carbonate platform from the deepwater shales of the basin. Submarine avalanches (turbidity flows) brought the 1,200 to 1,500 metres (approximately 3,900 to 4,900 feet) of interbedded shales and fine sandstones constituting the Aberystwyth Grit Formation to a deepwater basinal setting in west-central Wales. Less commonly, Silurian shales passively accumulated in broad platform settings. The Longmaqi Formation of the Yangtze platform in South China is one such shale body, which indicates the base of the Silurian System throughout parts of Yunnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Hunan, and Guizhou provinces. As much as 500 metres (1,640 feet) thick in places, these shales developed in quiet waters with low dissolved oxygen content. Similar conditions prevailed during early Silurian times well within Baltica, including southern Sweden and Denmark. The importance of the Qalibah Formation as a widespread anoxic black shale (that is, an organic-rich shale formed under low oxygen conditions) in Saudi Arabia is tied to petroleum production.

Tillites (tillite)

      Silurian sandstones and shales rest directly on Upper Ordovician tillites (tillite)—masses of sedimentary rock made up of unweathered (weathering) material and glacial till—in Saudi Arabia (Tabuk Formation) and throughout large parts of North Africa. In South America, which was fused with Africa during the Silurian Period, glaciation persisted well into the Wenlock Epoch. The Cancaniri Formation, including a prominent segment 60 metres (about 200 feet) thick that bears the Zapla Tillite, extends 1,500 km (about 930 miles) from northern Argentina over the Andes Mountains across Bolivia to Peru. Alpine glaciers advanced from high elevations down to tidewater areas to deposit these layers, including faceted and glacially striated boulders 1.5 metres (about 5 feet) in diameter. Similarly, the widespread Lower Silurian Nhamunda Formation in the Amazon region of Brazil includes diamictite (a non-sorted conglomerate made up clastic material) beds consisting of highly diverse clastics related to tillites.

Volcanic rocks (extrusive rock)

      Examples of rocks used to make absolute age determinations for the Silurian Period include a volcanic breccia dating back to the Llandovery Epoch from the Descon Formation on Esquibel Island in Alaska, ash beds (bentonites (bentonite)) from the Buildwas Formation at the base of the Wenlock Series and the Ludlow Elton Formation in Shropshire, Eng., and the Laidlaw Volcanics of the Ludlow Series near Canberra, Austl. Compared with other time periods, the Silurian Period was relatively quiet in terms of volcanic activity (volcanism). Moderate activity in those parts of the British Isles, the Canadian Maritimes, and coastal New England is collectively attributed to the appending of Avalonia to Baltica. Approximately 1,000 metres (about 3,300 feet) of basalt flows belonging to the Skomer Volcanics in southwestern Wales are dated to the Llandovery Epoch. rhyolite and andesite lavas were extruded in the area of the English Mendip Hills during Wenlock time. Basalts, rhyolites, and porphyritic (igneous rock) andesites from the Newbery Volcanics in northeastern Massachusetts were formed during the Pridoli Epoch. Rhyolitic and andesitic flows of Silurian age also are known in the region of Passamaquoddy Bay in Maine, as are volcanic flows and breccias in adjacent New Brunswick. A Silurian chain of volcanic islands stood off the Laurentian craton, stretching from the Klamath Mountains of northern California to Alaska. Likewise, andesitic and basaltic sites of volcanism stretched along the edge of Baltica, as framed by the Ural Mountains.

      The most extensive Silurian volcanism occurred in eastern Australia, principally in New South Wales but also in Victoria and Queensland. Activity was initiated during early Wenlock time with the Paddys River and Uriarra volcanic events. This was expanded during the Ludlow Epoch with the Laidlaw, Mineral Hill, Bennetts Creek, Mullions Range, and Bells Creek volcanics and concluded during Pridoli time with the Bombay Creek and Woodlawn volcanics and the Currawan Basalt event. Most of this volcanic activity took place in terrestrial environments. In New South Wales more than 200 intrusive granitic (granite) bodies of the late Silurian or early Devonian are geochemically linked to these silica-rich volcanics, but their precise age is difficult to establish.

Correlation of Silurian strata

      The most-challenging goal in stratigraphy is to identify on a global basis all those rocks formed during the shortest possible interval of geologic time. Correlation of Silurian strata within limits more refined than a stage (or its corresponding age) traditionally is achieved through the recovery of fossils belonging to shaley and shelly facies.

Graptolites (graptolite)

      Shaley facies generally represent deeper-water environments, such as those under which the Road River Group in the Yukon, the Aberystwyth Grit Formation in Wales, and the Longmaqi Formation of southern China accumulated. Fossils of graptolites (graptolite)—small, colonial, planktonic animals—are abundant in these dark Silurian shales. Graptolites were colonial hemichordates that secreted a protein exoskeleton commonly preserved as a carbon film in shales. An individual lived within a cuplike structure called a theca; multiple cups were spaced along one or more branches called stipes; and the entire colony sometimes was connected, by a threadlike structure known as a nema, to a central float.

      Some graptolites were bottom-dwellers, but the free-floating (or pelagic) species were geographically more cosmopolitan. They make excellent index fossils (index fossil) because they underwent rapid evolution and attained a broad distribution. The genera Pristiograptus and Cyrtograptus are pelagic graptolites characteristic of the Wenlock Series. As many as 42 graptolite biozones (biozone) have been defined for the Silurian System. Each biozone takes the name of one particular species but is usually based on several coeval species. The span of time represented by each graptolite biozone probably is not perfectly uniform, but the zonation allows the correlation of strata in depositional units of one million years or less. Superb as it is, this level of precision is restricted to regions rich in graptolitic shales. It is easier to correlate the deepwater shales of Wales and the Yukon with each other, for example, than it is to correlate either with nearby shallow-water shelf deposits.

Brachiopods (lamp shells)

      In contrast to shaley facies, shelly facies are represented by relatively shallow platform carbonates and clastic wedges with a retinue of mostly bottom-dwelling invertebrates. Among these, Silurian brachiopods ( lamp shells) were especially abundant, diverse, and widely distributed, making them effective index fossils. A still-extant group, the brachiopods possess a pair of bilaterally symmetrical shells and are tethered to the seafloor by a fleshy appendage usually protruding through one of the shells (thus, the shells are typically unequal in shape). Biostratigraphic zonations based on brachiopod lineages are well suited to the correlation of Llandovery and Wenlock strata. Those most frequently used are the Stricklandia-Costistricklandia, the Borealis-Pentamerus-Pentameroides, and the Eocoelia lineages. Excluding most of Gondwana save for eastern Australia, these brachiopods attained a broad tropical-to-subtropical distribution. Lineage members (including four subspecies of Stricklandia) may be employed for independent correlation but are more effective when they are used in combination with one another as overlapping taxon zones. Thus, Pentameroides subrectus alone may indicate a late Llandovery (Llandovery Series) (Telychian) age or an early Wenlock (Sheinwoodian) age. In association with Stricklandia laevis or Eocoelia curtisi, however, a Telychian age is certain. Single-taxon zones also are helpful in characterizing Ludlow and Pridoli (Pridoli Series) times. Only in unusual cases where brachiopod-bearing layers are interbedded with graptolite-rich shales (at the narrow transition between shelly and shaley facies) may the temporal relationships between the two kinds of index fossils be established. Most of the projected correlations between graptolite and brachiopod biozones are approximate.

Conodonts (conodont)

      Conodonts (conodont) constitute a third group of index fossils important for Silurian correlation. These phosphatic microfossils with the shape of conelike teeth (as the name implies) are the remains of an apparatus from the mouth cavity of a small, bilaterally symmetrical, free-swimming (nektonic) animal extinct since Triassic time. Rare body fossils suggest some affinities with surviving cephalochordates (cephalochordate), such as amphioxus, or the chaetognaths (arrowworm) (arrowworms). The individual elements comprising the conodont apparatus are very common in Silurian rocks that accumulated under a wide range of marine environments. Hydrochloric acid (HCl), which has no effect on phosphatic material, is used to dissolve limestone or lime-cemented sediments from which the conodonts may be recovered. Graptolite and brachiopod zonations have a long history of use in the Silurian, but the first conodont zonation based on material collected at Mount Cellon in the Carnic Alps of Austria was not proposed until the early 1960s. Different kinds of conodont-bearing animals lived in shallow nearshore environments (as opposed to deeper, more-offshore environments), and some were more conservative in their evolutionary development than others. Global correlation is based on 12¹/₂ conodont biozones for the complete Silurian. The base of each zone is defined by the first occurrence of the taxon. All are characteristic of open marine environments; the zonation is not applicable to strata that accumulated in restricted nearshore or deep-basin facies.

Isotope stratigraphy

      An alternative method gaining increased attention for the correlation of Silurian rocks is by means of isotope stratigraphy, which heretofore has found greater application to rocks of much younger age in the Cenozoic Era. Variations in oxygen, carbon, and strontium isotopes through sequences of layered limestone beds on Anticosti Island, Quebec, and in several localities in northern Europe, including the island of Gotland in Sweden, indicate changes in climate and long-term patterns of erosion. Samples for geochemical analysis are taken by the whole-rock method or by the retrieval of fossils with unaltered shells composed of calcium carbonate. Implicit in these methods is the assumption that the shells of some marine invertebrates, and the carbonate sediments derived thereof, are able to pick up and hold isotopic markers showing changes in the chemistry of Silurian seawater. High ratios of the oxygen isotopes ¹⁸O to ¹⁶0 or of the carbon isotopes ¹³C to ¹⁴C, for example, are indicative of colder intervals during times of low sea level. Low ratios are interpreted as indicative of warmer intervals during times of high sea level. Particularly through the lower Silurian stages, patterns in the variation of carbon and oxygen isotopes tend to corroborate the sequence of minor glacial and interglacial episodes using the succession of tillites and diamictites from the South American sector of Gondwana. Likewise, high ratios of the strontium isotopes ⁸⁷Sr to ⁸⁶Sr typically indicate periods of increased erosion as radiogenic strontium was transferred from the continents to the ocean during warmer intervals of climate. The strontium isotope curve shows a distinct inflection point near the base of the Wenlock Series, which may be used to widely correlate the Llandovery-Wenlock boundary.

Establishing Silurian boundaries

Early work

Murchison (Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey)

      Scottish geologist Roderick I. Murchison (Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey) began in 1831 to study rocks from the early Paleozoic Era in South Wales. In 1835 he named a sequence of rocks found in Wales and its border region with England for a native people called the Silures, who had resisted Roman conquest. Murchison published his findings in his classic work, The Silurian System (1839), illustrating 656 fossils, most of which were defined as characteristic of Silurian time. In this way, the formal groundwork was laid for recognition of Silurian rocks elsewhere around the world.

      Murchison's genius for military-style organization promoted the rapid adoption of his Silurian System throughout the British Isles, Scandinavia, and Europe. He was an active traveler who conceived of his field studies in terms of “campaigns.” Local guides and fossil collectors were considered “aides-de-camp” in his service.

      Murchison's original concept grew in his lifetime to embrace what is now differentiated into the Cambrian (Cambrian Period), Ordovician (Ordovician Period), and Silurian systems. Claims for a monolithic system began to weaken in 1854 with discovery of the famous unconformity on the River Onny in Shropshire, Eng., which indicates a natural break within the classic Silurian on its own home territory. Major unconformities exhibiting a sustained pause in sedimentation subsequently were recognized between the Ordovician and Silurian systems in many other places around the world where the boundary beds are exposed.

      While the absolute limits of Silurian time remained imprecise, Murchison's triumph was the identification of successive fossil types with broad geographic distributions that always follow in the same relative stratigraphic order wherever they occur. Exposed fossiliferous strata are now classified as belonging to a particular Silurian time interval so long as they correlate with fossils diagnostic of the appropriate stratotype in the United Kingdom or the Czech Republic.

Other researchers

      Some years earlier (1822), English geologist and minister William Buckland (Buckland, William) of Oxford University had observed that fossil brachiopods and corals collected by British army officers stationed on Drummond Island (Michigan Upper Peninsula) and by fur traders working at Cumberland House (east-central Saskatchewan) in North America were equivalent to fossils from Dudley, Eng., as well as to those from the Swedish island of Gotland and the Baltic countryside (Estonia) neighbouring St. Petersburg. Each of these sites rests on Silurian bedrock, as now strictly delimited.

      Contemporaries who undertook research on Silurian strata and fossils with equal vigour were the French paleontologist Joachim Barrande (Barrande, Joachim) in the Prague Basin of Bohemia and the American geologist and paleontologist James Hall (Hall, James) in the states of New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Other investigators who circulated to the distant territories of the British Empire lost little time in recording the worldwide distribution of Silurian fossils. The first report of Silurian fossils in Australia, for example, was made (erroneously) in 1838, prior to the publication of The Silurian System.

Geochemical analyses

      Absolute dates (dating) in geologic time are calculated using radioisotopes (radioactive isotopes (isotope)), which must be analyzed geochemically from samples of igneous rock. The radioisotopes decay at an exponential rate starting with the crystallization of the host rock from a magmatic source. Reheating of the host rock due to metamorphism, however, has the effect of resetting the radioisotope clock.

      Igneous rocks associated with sedimentary layers bearing fossils defined as Silurian are the desired targets for geochemical analysis, but few have remained untouched by metamorphism during their long existence. Typically, no more than four or five igneous localities are selected by teams of geochronologists to establish Silurian dates. Because igneous bodies are seldom found near the defined boundaries between geologic systems, the boundary ages for the Silurian Period must be extrapolated, taking into account a limited number of data points from older Ordovician and younger Devonian rocks.

      Competing groups of geochronologists disagree on precisely when and for how long the Silurian Period occurred. The oldest suggested age is 445 million years; the youngest is 395 million years. Some researchers believe the Silurian was as brief as 18 million years, while others argue for a span of 40 million years. In any case, the Silurian qualifies as one of the shortest geologic time periods—many others are approximately twice as long.

Silurian boundaries

      Much work has been done to determine exactly where the starting and ending points of Silurian life occur in the stratigraphic record and how the Silurian System may be broken into smaller chronostratigraphic units. Boundaries for subdivisions for the entire period have been internationally recognized and indicated with a global standard section and point (GSSP) marker, or “golden spike.” This work is being done by The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) and its committees or working groups, which are under the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS).

Ordovician-Silurian boundary

      The GSSP marker for the Ordovician-Silurian boundary is not associated with any unusual climatic changes or other physical phenomena that might have left a stratigraphic signature. Instead, in 1985 the working group on the Ordovician-Silurian boundary ratified its decision to use the base of the Parakidograptus acuminatus biozone (a group of concurrent graptolite species) as the base of the Silurian System. The stratotype was fixed at a horizon in Dob's Linn near Moff in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. The effect on sea level of Late Ordovician glaciation, combined with increasing deglaciation during the early Silurian, accounts for widespread stratigraphic unconformities at the Ordovician-Silurian boundary that usually omit the P. acuminatus biozone. In earliest Silurian time the Dob's Linn locality was situated environmentally in marine waters deep enough to remain unaffected by these changes.

Silurian-Devonian boundary

      The results of lengthy deliberations by the working group on the Silurian-Devonian boundary were published in 1977, fixing the base of the Monograptus uniformis biozone (a single graptolite taxon but reinforced by associated conodont and trilobite taxa) as the base of the Devonian System. The top of the Silurian System is constrained by this golden spike, which has its stratotype at a designated horizon in a cliff section near Klonk in the Czech Republic. Thus, the Silurian-Devonian boundary is anchored to the first occurrence of specific index fossils. The Klonk section acts as a kind of standard reference section with which other stratigraphic sections, potentially involving the Silurian-Devonian boundary beds, may be compared. This agreement, arrived at by a committee of specialists, represents the first time that the concept of the golden spike was put into effect internationally.

Markes E. Johnson

Additional Reading

Silurian stratigraphy

C.H. Holland and M.G. Bassett (eds.), A Global Standard for the Silurian System (1989), provides working definitions for systemic, series, and stage boundaries at stratotypes in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, summaries of other reference localities, and reviews of the major index fossils. Anders Martinsson (ed.), The Silurian-Devonian Boundary: Final Report of the Committee on the Silurian-Devonian Boundary within IUGS Commission on Stratigraphy and a State of the Art Report for Project Ecostratigraphy (1977), applies the “golden spike” concept in defining a chronostratigraphic boundary. James A. Secord, Controversy in Victorian Geology: The Cambrian-Silurian Dispute (1986), presents an historical treatment of Murchison's development of the Silurian System and the conflict that arose therein.

Silurian life

A. Hallam and P.B. Wignall, Mass Extinctions and Their Aftermath (1997), offers a thorough treatment of the terminal Ordovician mass extinction and the survivorship of various marine invertebrate groups into the Silurian. A.J. Boucot and J.D. Lawson (eds.), Paleocommunities: A Case Study from the Silurian and Lower Devonian (1999), provides a comprehensive review of marine invertebrate communities from the Silurian on a global basis.Markes E. Johnson

* * *