Dronov Andrei

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An extraterrestrial trigger for the mid-ordovician ice age: Dust from the breakup of the L-chondrite parent body

2019-09-18 , Schmitz, Birger , Farley, Kenneth A. , Goderis, Steven , Heck, Philipp R. , Bergstrom, Stig M. , Boschi, Samuele , Claeys, Philippe , Debaille, Vinciane , Dronov, Andrei , van Ginneke, Matthias , Harper, David A. T. , Iqbal, Faisal , Friberg, Johan , Liao, Shiyong , Martin, Ellinor , Meier, Matthias M. M. , Peucker-Ehrenbrink, Bernhard , Soens, Bastien , Wieler, Rainer , Terfelt, Fredrik

The breakup of the L-chondrite parent body in the asteroid belt 466 million years (Ma) ago still delivers almost a third of all meteorites falling on Earth. Our new extraterrestrial chromite and 3He data for Ordovician sediments show that the breakup took place just at the onset of a major, eustatic sea level fall previously attributed to an Ordovician ice age. Shortly after the breakup, the flux to Earth of the most fine-grained, extraterrestrial material increased by three to four orders of magnitude. In the present stratosphere, extraterrestrial dust represents 1% of all the dust and has no climatic significance. Extraordinary amounts of dust in the entire inner solar system during >2 Ma following the L-chondrite breakup cooled Earth and triggered Ordovician icehouse conditions, sea level fall, and major faunal turnovers related to the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.