Seawater Chemistry and Early Carbonate Biomineralization
Abstract
The first appearances of aragonite and calcite skeletons in 18 animal clades that independently evolved mineralization during late Ediacaran through Ordovician time periods (~550 to 450 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.
- Publication:
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Science
- Pub Date:
- June 2007
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.1137284
- Bibcode:
- 2007Sci...316.1302P
- Keywords:
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- PALEO