Phanerozoic phytoplankton, marine biodiversity, pCO2, tectonic and climatic cycles
Event details
| Date | 20.10.2015 |
| Hour | 12:00 › 13:00 |
| Speaker | Dr Thomas Servais, CNRS-UMR 8198 Evo-Eco Paleo, Université de Lille, France |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract:
The modern oceans display three major groups of marine phytoplankton: the calcareous (coccolithophores, etc.), siliceous (diatoms, etc.) and organic-walled (dinoflagellates, etc.) phytoplankton. The fossil record indicates that elements of the organic-walled microphytoplankton were most probably present in the oceans since the Precambrian. However, the presence of calcareous and siliceous phytoplankton in the Precambrian and Palaeozoic is not clearly established, coccolithophorids and diatoms only appear in the fossil record in the early Mesozoic. Nonetheless, the Palaeozoic fossil record of the acritarchs can be used as a proxy for the larger marine organic-walled microplankton (> 20 µm), the smaller fractions of the phytoplankton, the picoplankton and the bacterioplankton having usually not been documented.
The diversity changes of the Phanerozoic phytoplankton indicate some major palaeoecological trends and allow us to redraw partly the evolution of the marine phytoplankton from the Cambrian to the Present. Here we attempt to correlate the Phanerozoic phytoplankton with the global marine palaeobiodiversity, pCO2, as well as tectonic and climatic cycles, focusing on the Cambrian-Ordovician radiation (including the ‘Ordovician plankton revolution’), the ‘Late Palaeozoic phytoplankton blackout’, and the ‘Mesozoic radiation.'
Short biography:
Thomas Servais is a research director at the French Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) at the University of Lille, France. He was trained as a geologist at the universities of Namur and Liège in Belgium, where he received a PhD on the study of Ordovician acritarchs (organic-walled phytoplankton). After postdoctoral studies in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom, he was recruited as a CNRS research associate at the University of Lille, where he successively directed the research units (UMR) of palaeontology and geology. Most of his research concentrates on Lower Palaeozoic microphytoplankton, but other fields of interest include regional geology, macro- and micropalaeontology. He has been President of the Association de Palynologues de Langue Française (APLF), President of the Association Paléontologique Française (APF), Vice President of the Palaeontological Association and leader of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) project no. 503 “Ordovician Palaeogeography and Palaeoclimater”. He is currently past-President of the International Federation of Palynological Societies (IFPS) and Vice President of the Paleontological Association.
The modern oceans display three major groups of marine phytoplankton: the calcareous (coccolithophores, etc.), siliceous (diatoms, etc.) and organic-walled (dinoflagellates, etc.) phytoplankton. The fossil record indicates that elements of the organic-walled microphytoplankton were most probably present in the oceans since the Precambrian. However, the presence of calcareous and siliceous phytoplankton in the Precambrian and Palaeozoic is not clearly established, coccolithophorids and diatoms only appear in the fossil record in the early Mesozoic. Nonetheless, the Palaeozoic fossil record of the acritarchs can be used as a proxy for the larger marine organic-walled microplankton (> 20 µm), the smaller fractions of the phytoplankton, the picoplankton and the bacterioplankton having usually not been documented.
The diversity changes of the Phanerozoic phytoplankton indicate some major palaeoecological trends and allow us to redraw partly the evolution of the marine phytoplankton from the Cambrian to the Present. Here we attempt to correlate the Phanerozoic phytoplankton with the global marine palaeobiodiversity, pCO2, as well as tectonic and climatic cycles, focusing on the Cambrian-Ordovician radiation (including the ‘Ordovician plankton revolution’), the ‘Late Palaeozoic phytoplankton blackout’, and the ‘Mesozoic radiation.'
Short biography:
Thomas Servais is a research director at the French Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) at the University of Lille, France. He was trained as a geologist at the universities of Namur and Liège in Belgium, where he received a PhD on the study of Ordovician acritarchs (organic-walled phytoplankton). After postdoctoral studies in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom, he was recruited as a CNRS research associate at the University of Lille, where he successively directed the research units (UMR) of palaeontology and geology. Most of his research concentrates on Lower Palaeozoic microphytoplankton, but other fields of interest include regional geology, macro- and micropalaeontology. He has been President of the Association de Palynologues de Langue Française (APLF), President of the Association Paléontologique Française (APF), Vice President of the Palaeontological Association and leader of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) project no. 503 “Ordovician Palaeogeography and Palaeoclimater”. He is currently past-President of the International Federation of Palynological Societies (IFPS) and Vice President of the Paleontological Association.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
- This event is internal
Organizer
- EESS - IIE
Contact
- Prof. Anders Meibom, LGB