Dead by Degrees: Articulate Brachiopods, Paleoclimate and the Mid-Carboniferous Extinction Event Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The mid-Carboniferous extinction event is a relatively minor mass extinction, probably caused by the onset of continental glaciation in the Southern Hemisphere. The migration patterns of Northern Hemisphere articulate brachiopods during the early and middle Carboniferous suggest that high-latitude warming occurred between the middle and late Visean and that both high-latitude cooling and equatorial warming occurred at the time of the mid-Carboniferous extinction event in the early Namurian. Visean high-latitude warming may have been caused by the collision of Laurussia and Gondwana, which deflected warm currents north and south along the east coast of Pangaea. Namurian high-latitude cooling coincided with the onset of Southern Hemisphere glaciation. For articulate brachiopods in the Northern Hemisphere, rates of generic extinction increased during the time of high-latitude cooling and glacial onset (Namurian A). The extinction event began earlier (late Visean) in the Southern Hemisphere and may have been more severe. -from Authors

published proceedings

  • Palaios

author list (cited authors)

  • Raymond, A., Kelley, P. H., & Lutken, C. B.

citation count

  • 42

complete list of authors

  • Raymond, Anne||Kelley, Patricia H||Lutken, Carol Blanton

publication date

  • January 1990