An extraterrestrial trigger for the mid-Ordovician ice age: Dust from the breakup of the L-chondrite parent body

Schmitz, Birger, Farley, Kenneth A., Goderis, Steven, Heck, Philipp R., Bergström, Stig M., Boschi, Samuele, Claeys, Philippe, Debaille, Vinciane, Dronov, Andrei, van Ginneken, Matthias, and others. (2019) An extraterrestrial trigger for the mid-Ordovician ice age: Dust from the breakup of the L-chondrite parent body. Science Advances, 5 (9). eaax4184. ISSN 2375-2548. (doi:10.1126/sciadv.aax4184) (KAR id:88145)

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax4184

Abstract

The breakup of the L-chondrite parent body in the asteroid belt 466 million years (Ma) ago still delivers almost a third of all meteorites falling on Earth. Our new extraterrestrial chromite and 3He data for Ordovician sediments show that the breakup took place just at the onset of a major, eustatic sea level fall previously attributed to an Ordovician ice age. Shortly after the breakup, the flux to Earth of the most fine-grained, extraterrestrial material increased by three to four orders of magnitude. In the present stratosphere, extraterrestrial dust represents 1% of all the dust and has no climatic significance. Extraordinary amounts of dust in the entire inner solar system during >2 Ma following the L-chondrite breakup cooled Earth and triggered Ordovician icehouse conditions, sea level fall, and major faunal turnovers related to the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.

Item Type:	Article
DOI/Identification number:	10.1126/sciadv.aax4184
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy > QB651 Planets, Minor Q Science > QE Geology > QE515 Geochemistry
Divisions:	Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Funders:	Swedish Research Council (https://ror.org/03zttf063) Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (https://ror.org/01fapfv42)
Depositing User:	Matthias van Ginneken
Date Deposited:	14 May 2021 13:51 UTC
Last Modified:	04 Mar 2024 18:03 UTC
Resource URI:	https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/88145 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

van Ginneken, Matthias.

Creator's ORCID:	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2508-7021
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