Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Rothman DH
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3992638 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Rothman Daniel H DH Fournier Gregory P GP French Katherine L KL Alm Eric J EJ Boyle Edward A EA Cao Changqun C Summons Roger E RE
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20140331 15
The end-Permian extinction is associated with a mysterious disruption to Earth's carbon cycle. Here we identify causal mechanisms via three observations. First, we show that geochemical signals indicate superexponential growth of the marine inorganic carbon reservoir, coincident with the extinction and consistent with the expansion of a new microbial metabolic pathway. Second, we show that the efficient acetoclastic pathway in Methanosarcina emerged at a time statistically indistinguishable from ...[more]