Vecoli, M., O. Lehnert, and T. Servais. “Did microplankton ‘explosions’ trigger the Ordovician biodiversification event.” In Geophysical Research Abstracts , vol. 7, p. 08873. 2005.
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The Ordovician fossil record shows evidence of the most rapid, long sustained burst of
biotic diversification in the history of marine life on Earth (The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event; Webby et al., 2004). Radiation events during Early and Middle
Ordovician caused the tripling of marine biodiversity and the establishment of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic evolutionary faunas which have the greater relevance to presentday biotic communities. The Ordovician ended with a major climatic change, marked by the development of a glaciation centred on the Gondwana supercontinent. The above described ecological changes were associated, throughout the Ordovician, to intense tectonic and volcanic activity and major re-organization of the plate-tectonic global assembly.