Mercury evidence for volcanism driving environmental changes during the protracted Late Ordovician mass extinction and early Silurian recovery

Abstract

Volcanism has been proposed as the trigger for the environmental perturbations and associated mass extinction during the Ordovician–Silurian (OS) transition. However, the timing, duration, and intensity of volcanic eruptions during this critical period and their relationships to environmental perturbations and biotic changes remain unresolved. In this study, we use mercury (Hg) concentrations and isotopes from marine sediments in South China to reconstruct the evolution of volcanism from the Late Ordovician to early Silurian. Our results show that strong Hg enrichment coupled with generally near-zero to slightly positive Δ199Hg values occurred before, during, and after the classically defined Late Ordovician Mass Extinction (LOME), suggesting a significant influx of volcanogenic Hg. The Hg enrichment intervals coincided with global warming, oceanic anoxia, and negative excursions in carbon and sulfur isotopes, suggesting that volcanism drove the environmental perturbations during the OS transition. The coincidence of Hg enrichment with extinction horizons supports the hypothesis that volcanism may have contributed to LOME. Our study also suggests that volcanism persisted for approximately 3 million years after mass extinction and may have delayed the recovery of marine ecosystems during early Silurian.