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How much did the number of marine genera increase during the Ordovician radiation?
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Ordovician Period
The distribution of landmasses, mountainous regions, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins during the Ordovician Period. Included in the paleogeographic reconstruction are the locations of the interval's subduction zones.
During the Ordovician radiation, an intense interval of diversification that occurred over tens of millions of years, the number of marine genera experienced a fourfold increase. This period of rapid evolution continued the diversification trends established during the Cambrian explosion by expanding life into new ecological niches and increasing the complexity of biological communities.12