An international team of scientists from France and Norway investigated the cause of the so-called Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event, a period during which a wide variety of marine and terrestrial organism species emerged. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Nature Communications (NatComms).
The Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event began 471 million years ago and lasted approximately 25 million years. During this period, the number of marine creatures doubled, families tripled, and the overall diversity of life in the oceans became comparable to today.
For a long time, earth science experts could not name a clear cause of this phenomenon; They put forward hypotheses about the increase in oxygen concentration in the atmosphere due to plants, changes due to continental drift and meteorite falls.
In a new study, scientists suggest that the rise of life on Earth was driven by a decline in global sea surface temperatures from an average of +40°C to +30°C.
Experts have created a climate model that explains conditions on the planet from 440 million to 490 million years ago. The simulation showed that the drop in atmospheric and ocean temperatures created a cooling trend; The coldest waters were gradually warming towards the equator. This created a suitable environment for the development of marine life.
Previous scientists in the name Global climate catastrophe in the Paleozoic.