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Anchoring the Late Devonian mass extinction in absolute time by integrating climatic controls and radio-isotopic dating

Da Silva, Anne-Christine; Sinnesael, Matthias; Claeys, Philippe; Davies, Joshua H.F.L.; de Winter, Niels J.; Percival, L.M.E.; Schaltegger, Urs; De Vleeschouwer, David

Anchoring the Late Devonian mass extinction in absolute time by integrating climatic controls and radio-isotopic dating Thumbnail


Authors

Anne-Christine Da Silva

Philippe Claeys

Joshua H.F.L. Davies

Niels J. de Winter

L.M.E. Percival

Urs Schaltegger

David De Vleeschouwer



Abstract

The Devonian Frasnian–Famennian (F–F) boundary marks one of the five main extinction intervals of the Phanerozoic Aeon. This time was characterized by two pulses of oceanic anoxia, named the Lower and Upper Kellwasser events, during which massive marine biodiversity losses occurred. This paper presents high-resolution magnetic susceptibility, X-ray fluorescence elemental geochemistry and carbon isotope datasets obtained from the Steinbruch Schmidt F–F boundary section (Germany). These records lead to an astronomical time calibration of the environmental changes associated with the two ocean anoxia pulses. Cyclostratigraphic interpretation indicates deposition of the black argillaceous Lower and Upper Kellwasser horizons over ~ 90 and ~ 110 kyr, respectively; approximately equivalent to the duration of one short eccentricity cycle. This study confirms that the succession of events within the Upper Kellwasser event is paced by obliquity, under a low-eccentricity orbit. Hence, astronomical insolation forcing likely contributed to the expansion of ocean anoxia and other environmental perturbations associated with these two crises. The new floating chronology established for the Steinbruch Schmidt section is anchored in numerical time by means of a radio-isotopic date, obtained from a bentonite layer interbedded between the two Kellwasser horizons. After anchoring, this time scale gives a high-precision age of 371.870 ± 0.108 Ma for the F–F boundary.

Citation

Da Silva, A., Sinnesael, M., Claeys, P., Davies, J. H., de Winter, N. J., Percival, L., …De Vleeschouwer, D. (2020). Anchoring the Late Devonian mass extinction in absolute time by integrating climatic controls and radio-isotopic dating. Scientific Reports, 10(1), Article 12940. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-69097-6

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 11, 2020
Online Publication Date Jul 31, 2020
Publication Date 2020
Deposit Date Aug 3, 2020
Publicly Available Date Aug 4, 2020
Journal Scientific Reports
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 10
Issue 1
Article Number 12940
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-69097-6

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.




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