This extinction hit marine life hard, especially organisms living in shallow seas. The leading explanation centers on glaciation over Gondwana, falling sea levels, and disrupted ocean habitats. As seas withdrew, vast marine ecosystems collapsed, clearing space for new evolutionary paths in the Silurian.
Ordovician–Silurian Extinction: Ice Strikes the Seas
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Ordovician–Silurian Extinction: Ice Strikes the Seas
~444 Million Years Ago
Cause: Global Cooling and Falling Seas
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The Ordovician–Silurian extinction shows how climate change can reshape evolution by collapsing old ecosystems and opening space for new life.
Subject: Evolution.
About 444 million years ago, global cooling locked water in ice, sea levels fell, and shallow marine habitats vanished. Most life still lived in the oceans, so the damage was enormous. Yet after the collapse, life reorganized. Evolution did not stop; it changed direction.
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