Late Ordovician mass extinction

High school (ages 12+)
Environment & Earth

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/late-ordovician-mass-extinction

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the geological period?Late Ordovician to Early Silurian epochs
2. What is the key survivors?Species with wider environmental tolerances, potentially including some deep-sea or polar inhabitants
3. What happened during the Great Ordovician Wipeout?It was a huge extinction that killed about 85% of marine species about 443 million years ago.
4. Why did the oceans change so much during the Great Ordovician Wipeout?First a big ice age lowered sea level and cooled the water, then the ice melted, making the water fresher and warmer, which hurt many sea creatures.

Epicontinental Seas: Shallow seas that cover large areas of continental crust, often rich in marine life.
Gondwana: A supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, located near the South Pole during the Ordovician.
Deglaciation: The process of the retreat of glaciers and ice sheets, leading to rising sea levels and warming temperatures.