Ordovician Period - Art Print 13" x 19"
505-438 million years ago

Ordovician period, printed on premium glossy photo paper. Original Oil Painting by Josef Moravec 35" x 24" is in the Art Collection of Dinosaur Corporation.

The Ordovician period is the second of the six (seven in North America) periods of the Paleozoic era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago (ICS, 2004). It follows the Cambrian period and is followed by the Silurian period. The Ordovician, named after the Welsh tribe of the Ordovices, was defined by Charles Lapworth in 1879, to resolve a dispute between followers of Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison, who were placing the same rock beds in northern Wales into the Cambrian and Silurian periods respectively. Lapworth, recognizing that the fossil fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian periods, realized that they should be placed in a period of their own.
The Ordovician period started at a major extinction event called the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction events some time about 488.3 ± 1.7 million years ago (Ma) and lasted for about 44.6 million years. It ended with another major extinction event about 443.7 ± 1.5 Ma (ICS, 2004) that wiped out 60% of marine genera. A. Melott et al. (ref. 2006) suggested a ten-second gamma ray burst could have destroyed the ozone layer and exposed terrestrial and marine surface-dwelling life to deadly radiation, but most scientists agree that extinction events are complex with multiple causes.