earth science

Late Ordovician

Late Ordovician is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Late Ordovician rather than just read about it. In short: The Late Ordovician is the third and final epoch of the Ordovician period, lasting 15.1 million years and spanning from around 458.2 to 443.1 million years ago. The rocks associated with this epoch are referred to as the Upper Ordovician Series.

Key takeaways

Late Ordovician belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Late Ordovician to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Late Ordovician from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Late Ordovician is the third and final epoch of the Ordovician period, lasting 15.1 million years and spanning from around 458.2 to 443.1 million years ago. The rocks associated with this epoch are referred to as the Upper Ordovician Series. At this time, Western and Central Europe and North America collided to form Laurentia, while glaciers built up in Gondwana, which was positioned over the South Pole. This caused a drop in global temperatures, resulting in "ice house" conditions. For most of this time, life continued to flourish, but at and near the end of the period, there were mass-extinction events that seriously affected planktonic forms like conodonts, graptolites, and some groups of trilobites (Agnostida and Pytchopariida, which completely died out, and the Asaphida which were much reduced). Brachiopods, bryozoans and echinoderms were also heavily affected, and the endocerid cephalopods died out completely, except for possible rare Silurian forms. The Ordovician-Silurian Extinction Events may have been caused by an ice age that occurred at the end of the Ordovician period as the end of the Late Ordovician was one of the coldest times in the last 600 million years of Earth history.

References

External links Middle & Late Ordovician Climate The World during the Middle and Late Ordovician Archived 2005-03-21 at the Wayback Machine The Late Ordovician GeoWhen Database - Late Ordovician The Ordovician Mass Extinction Archived 2005-07-17 at the Wayback Machine BBC Evolution Weekend: Extinction Files

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Late Ordovician

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Late Ordovician claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Late Ordovician before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Late Ordovician ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Late Ordovician

In research: Late Ordovician appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Late Ordovician in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Late Ordovician is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Geochronology stubs, Geological epochs, Ordovician, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Late Ordovician outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Late Ordovician in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Late Ordovician means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Late Ordovician out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Late Ordovician in simple terms?

Why does Late Ordovician matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Late Ordovician?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Late Ordovician.