Western Australian Tumblagooda Sandstone record of early Paleozoic life on land

• Tumblagooda Sandstone ranges from Cambrian to Early Devonian in age. • Pedostratigraphic ages use greenhouse spikes from calcic horizon depth in paleosols. • Animals, plants, and lichens on land fueled biodiversification in sea. • Paleosols reveal increased soil weathering, transpiration, and nutrient depletion. The geological age of the fluvial-eolian Tumblagooda Sandstone has been controversial with advocates for Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, and Early Devonian age, but this study finds evidence for all of the above in different parts of the formation. Cambrian is indicated by conodonts, Ordovician by euthycarcinoids, Ordovician-Silurian by spores, and Early Devonian by fish scales. A paleomagnetic paleopole and reversal near the top of local outcrops of Tumblagooda Sandstone on the coast near Kalbarri is the same as 9 other Ordovician paleopoles and very different from 7 Silurian paleopoles. Like paleomagnetism, pedostratigraphy using greenhouse transients from calcic horizon depth in paleosols requires independent time constraints, and is here reassessed to confirm that Tumblagooda Sandstone identified in the Wendy core is much younger (Silurian-Devonian) than the formation along the Murchison River and sea cliffs near Kalbarri (Cambrian-Silurian). New age constraints demonstrate that colonization of land by animals, plants, and lichens fueled the marine Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event. Documented increases in soil weathering, transpiration, and nutrient depletion were later exceeded with advent of vascular plant roots and stomates during the Silurian-Devonian Terrestrial Revolution.