Evaluating records of environmental change and mass extinctions during the Early Paleozoic (INVITED)

Abstract

The interval between the Cambrian ‘explosion’ and the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) is marred by biotic turmoil. Several mass extinction events have been recognized throughout the Cambrian, with multiple Furongian (late) Cambrian extinctions mostly seen within trilobite fauna of North America. These extinctions appear to correspond with episodic ocean anoxia and carbon cycle perturbations, all of which are set to the backdrop of an extensive greenhouse climate. Here we will present new chemostratigraphic and compiled biostratigraphic data from Cambrian successions of the North China/Sino-Korean block (NCB). These data help identify newly recognized trilobite extinctions in upper Cambrian carbonate platform deposits of the NCB that may be correlative to North American events, demonstrating their global extent. These extinctions also correspond with marked