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IGCP n° 653 The onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event 

IGCP Project 653, which operated from 2016-2021, can be considered to be a direct successor project of IGCP n° 410 The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and IGCP n°503 Ordovician Palaeogeography and Palaeoclimate and also to some extent IGCP n°591 The Early to Middle Palaeozoic Revolution. It is succeeded by IGCP n° 735 Rocks and the Rise of Ordovician Life. As the title indicates, the main objective of IGCP Project 653 was to find the triggers of the different biodiversification events that together constitute the GOBE.

Reports from the meetings and publications developed during the project are archived on this website.

Short description of the project: 

The ‘Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event’ (GOBE) comprises the rapid diversification of marine organisms during the Ordovician Period. It is now clear that this adaptive radiation started for some organisms already in the late Cambrian and continued for others beyond the end of the Ordovician, making the GOBE the sum of a number of diversifications that completely modified marine food webs and that, for the first time in geological times, established modern marine ecosystems. The project focuses on interdisciplinary investigations, including case studies from international sites, involving specialists from the fields of palaeontology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, geochemistry, palaeooceanography, palaeoclimatology, etc., in collaboration with the Subcommission on Ordovician Stratigraphy (SOS). The results of the project will contribute to the understanding of the triggering causes of the establishment of modern marine ecosystems, but also to the identification of the reasons of the first collapse of these environments during the Late Ordovician mass extinction. The project will involve scientists from all over the world, and through the organization of dedicated workshops, will integrate graduate and doctoral students, in particular from developing countries.