The Cambro-Ordovician evolution

of the TAZ (Taphonomically Active

Zone) and its impact on carbonate
facies


Paul Wright (1) & Lesley Cherns (2)
Natural Sciences, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff,
UK (v.vpw@btopenworld.com)
Earth & Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
(cherns@cardiff.ac.uk)

Linking three major features of
Ordovician marine carbonates
1. Increase in burrowing depth and degree of
bioturbation in marine sediments through the
Ordovician
2. Demise of subtidal flat pebble conglomerates
3. Abundance of hardgrounds

1 & 2 have been linked and interpreted as reflecting the
physical disruption of thin cemented beds by burrowers

But should focus be on geochemical aspects of changes in
bioturbation linked to the thickening of the TAZ
(Taphonomically Active Zone)?





Take Away Points

Increased depth of bioturbation through the Ordovician was
critical to early carbonate diagenesis, thickening the TAZ and so
deepening the zone of syn-depositional cementation that
reworking by waves, etc, became less likely

Evidence from three features of shallow ramp sea floors:
Pre-Floian shallow depth of cementation, short residence
times and frequent reworking to produce subtidal flat
pebble conglomerates
Floian increase in depth of bioturbation, lowered depth of
cementation, less prone to reworking, thicker cementation
zones associated with hiatus nodules and hardgrounds
Post-Floian further increase in burrowing depths, zone of
cementation below wave effects, marked decrease in
hardground frequency
TAZ and associated early cementation related to
aragonite dissolution and calcite precipitation
Droser & Bottjer 1988
Increase in degree of disturbance
by bioturbation seen through the
Cambrian of the Great Basin, USA
I
n
c
r
e
a
s
i
n
g

Increase in bioturbation through the Cambrian
Lower Cambrian Upper Ord.
Cambrian Ordovician

Droser & Bottjer 1989
6=complete
homogenization
Increase in bioturbation through the
Cambro-Ordovician

Degree and depth of bioturbation
Contemporaneous with the increase in the
degree of bioturbation was an increase in the
depth of bioturbation

Droser & Bottjer 1989: Depth of bioturbation
is consistently less than 6cm through the
Middle Ordovician measurements for the
depth of bioturbation observed in strata of
Late Ordovician age are as much as 30cm

Hardground data from Taylor 2008
and Wilson 2008
Flat pebble data exclude
peritidal examples
And the other two features in question
Can we be more precise about when
these changes were taking place?

In China the
Floian is an
interval of
major change
in sea floor
character
From Liu & Zhan,
2009, Acta Geol
Sinica, 83, 513-523

In China the
Floian is an
interval of
major change
in sea floor
character
From Liu & Zhan,
2009, Acta Geol
Sinica, 83, 513-523

In China the Floian is an interval of major
change in sea floor character
From Liu & Zhan,
2009, Acta Geol
Sinica, 83, 513-523

Flat pebble
conglomerates
Bioturbation
Subtidal microbial
carbonates
Flat pebble conglomerates

Hiatus nodules
Bryozoan
on Md Ord
Kanosh
Fm Utah

Bryozoan on
Up Ord
hardground,
Kentucky

Ordovician,
Utah

The appearance of encrusters
makes hardgrounds more
recognizable after the early
Ordovician (Brett & Liddell, 1978).
This likely reflects availability of
such stable substrates as
compared with the irregular and
less stable, fragmented cemented
layers characteristic earlier in the
Palaeozoic

Hardgrounds
The Ordovician was a
golden age for epizoans
on hard substrates, at
least for those which left
skeletal evidence. Much
of the increased
abundance and diversity
of Ordovician hard
substrate organisms is
due to the increase in
hard substrate availability
since the Cambrian.
Taylor & Wilson, 2003,
ESR, 62, 1-103
Brett & Liddell 1978,
Paleobiology, 4, 329-348
Exhumation of larger and more stable cemented
surfaces provided a new niche for invertebrates

Ordovician Hardground Abundance
Previous focus on theory that Ordovician seas were
undersaturated with respect to aragonite so sea-floor dissolution
released carbonate for local cementation
Carbonate hardgrounds reach their peak abundance in shallow marine
environments largely due to the prevailing Calcite Sea conditions which
facilitated early aragonite dissolution and synsedimentary calcite
cementation Taylor & Wilson, 2003, ESR, 62, 1-103
The widespread development of hardgrounds during the Ordovician was
related to the extensive and pervasive precipitation of low-magnesium
calcite on shallow-water marine seafloors (Wilson and Palmer, 1992;
Palmer and Wilson, 2004) ; dissolution of aragonite may have been the
source of the calcite cement. Harper 2006, Palaeo3, 232, 148-166
However, Kenyon-Roberts 1995 found no direct evidence for sea
floor dissolution associated with Ordovician hardgrounds, and
many studies have now established that early aragonite
dissolution takes place in the TAZ where undersaturation is
generated largely by oxidation of H
2
S





PREC-C-LATE EARLY ORD
Thin TAZ, shallow sub-sea
floor zone of cementation
(ZOC) , readily and
frequently reworked
MID-LATE ORD
Thicker TAZ, deeper ZOC, less
commonly reworked so more
developed; reworking produced
hiatus nodules and exposed
surfaces as hardgrounds
LATE ORD
Thicker TAZ, even deeper
ZOC; rare reworking and
exhumation LMA only
With shallow-depth cementation , thicker diagenetic bedding (LMAs)
was restricted to deeper water settings less affected by reworking. As
the TAZ thickened and depth of cementation increased, thicker beds
were now likely to be preserved in shallower settings..LMA facies
migrated into shallower water settings
Thanks to Carl Brett, Noel James and Brian Pratt for many images
This talk will be available on the Carbonateworld web site in two weeks