Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Phanozoic Climate Modes - First Warm Mode, Early Cambrian – Late Ordovician

The Warm Mode – Chronology

The glacial phase of the Late Proterozoic-Cambrian ended at some time in the Early Cambrian and the Earth began to warm. The latitudinal expansion of the sedimentation of carbonate is the first discernible evidence of this cooling, and it is inferred that the process was slow, not reaching a culmination until the Middle Ordovician, as the expansion was gradual. There was a major increase in aridity at the start of the Cool Mode, as evidenced by the abundance of evaporites at low to middle latitudes, though this ended abruptly at the close of the Early Cambrian, the globe being dominated by humid climates thereafter. The end of the Warm Mode was in the Middle Ordovician with the growth of ice sheets in northern Africa.

Sources & Further reading

1.      Frakes, L. A., et al. (1992). Climate modes of the Phanerozoic, Nature Publishing Group.