Seawater Chemistry and Early Carbonate Biomineralization

2007/05/31 by Susannah M. Porter · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils #Ichthyology and Marine Biology

paper · doi:10.1126/science.1137284

openalex publication_date 2007/05/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

The first appearances of aragonite and calcite skeletons in 18 animal clades that independently evolved mineralization during the late Ediacaran through the Ordovician (approximately 550 to 444 million years ago) correspond to intervals when seawater chemistry favored aragonite and calcite precipitation, respectively. Skeletal mineralogies rarely changed once skeletons evolved, despite subsequent changes in seawater chemistry. Thus, the selection of carbonate skeletal minerals appears to have been dictated by seawater chemistry at the time a clade first acquired its mineralized skeleton.

Citations

• Secular oscillations in the carbonate mineralogy of reef-building and sediment-producing organisms driven by tectonically forced shifts in seawater chemistry

Cited by

• The Ediacaran emergence of bilaterians: congruence between the genetic and the geological fossil records
• Calcite [wikipedia]

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