Collaborative Research: Comparing Upper Ordovician-Lower Silurian Carbonate Platforms in Estonia and the Great Basin: A Test of the Synchrony of Sequences and Faunal Changes

Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee WI

Investigators

Abstract

Collaborative Research: Comparing Upper Ordovician-Lower Silurian Carbonate Platforms in Estonia and the Great Basin: A Test of the Synchrony of Sequences and Faunal Changes The principal investigatorsU previous work in the Great Basin documented unconformity-bound rock units (sequences) that correlate to those described elsewhere in North America. Reorganizations of faunal communities coincided with sequence boundaries, suggesting a causal link between maximum physical disruption and community-level changes. This study will test the correlation of sequences to community reorganizations in other continental blocks, the extent of community changes in endemic (localized) versus cosmopolitan (worldwide) faunas, and the possible mechanisms for community change. The heart of the proposal is a detailed sedimentological, sequence stratigraphy, and paleontological study of the Baltic section through a collaborative study with five Estonian colleagues. The Estonian section was located on a different continental block, contains both endemic Ordovician and cosmopolitan Silurian faunas, and brackets one of the major Paleozoic extinction events at the end of the Ordovician. In addition, there is a large amount of existing paleontological and sedimentological data (including isotope stratigraphy), and it can be studied in both outcrop (providing good faunal information) and core (providing nearly complete stratigraphic coverage from shelf areas into the basin). These characteristics will allow development of a stratigraphic model within which faunal distributions can be readily established and compared to the Great Basin patterns. The proposal includes funding for a three-year collaboration among nine scientists: two principal investigators, one post-doctoral investigator, one MS student, and five Estonian scientists. (Some costs may be covered by NSFUs Division of International Programs.) It will significantly foster international collaboration between US and Eastern European scientists, and provide the principal investigators and the MS student international research experience. In addition, the Ordovician part of this study will also contribute to the newly established International Global Correlation Project 410 (Ordovician Global Biodiversity) in which both the principal investigators and Estonian scientists are active.