Abstract
The trend in the abundance of skeletal organisms does not exhibit a monotonic rise beginning with the Cambrian Explosion, but rather has oscillated through major biodiversification events and mass extinctions. With the appearance of several skeletonized clades in the early Cambrian, organisms began exerting some control on carbonate production, but it is not until later in the Paleozoic that those organisms account for a significant proportion of total carbonate production. Here, it is proposed that changing abundances of skeletal organisms can be quantified by examining their relative contributions to sedimentary rock fabrics. This method provides a quantitative way to determine changes in skeletal contribution to carbonates through time, for example, to track the expansion of skeletal organisms from the Cambrian through the Ordovician radiation. Analysis of carbonates from Cambro-Ordovician strata of western Newfoundland demonstrates that the skeletal contribution to Cambrian carbonates is low compared to their Middle Ordovician counterparts. The point count data reported here thus reveal that important ecological changes, such as the increase in carbonate skeletal abundance through the Early Paleozoic, can be gleaned by this approach.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the Agouron Institute (postdoctoral fellowship to SP), Harvard University and Smith College for partial funding of this research. We would like to acknowledge A. Breus, A. Mushegian, and D. Schmandt, for thin section preparation and analysis and K. B. Hender, S. Finnegan, M. Laflamme, and J. Payne for helpful discussions and comments that improved this manuscript.
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Pruss, S.B., Clemente, H. (2011). Assessing the Role of Skeletons in Early Paleozoic Carbonate Production: Insights from Cambro-Ordovician Strata, Western Newfoundland. In: Laflamme, M., Schiffbauer, J., Dornbos, S. (eds) Quantifying the Evolution of Early Life. Topics in Geobiology, vol 36. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0680-4_7
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