The SPICE event
A worldwide carbon isotope swing marks a huge burial of organic carbon and a pulse of oxygen.
- When
- Known to
- ± 2 million years
- Era
- Cambrian, Paleozoic
The Steptoean Positive Carbon Isotope Excursion, around 497 million years ago, records a major perturbation of the carbon cycle coinciding with anoxic conditions, trilobite extinction and a subsequent rise in atmospheric oxygen. It is one of the largest such excursions of the Paleozoic and is used to correlate late Cambrian rocks across continents.