Felsic volcanism as a factor driving the end-Permian mass extinction.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Zhang H
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8597993 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:The end-Permian mass extinction horizon is marked by an abrupt shift in style of carbonate sedimentation and a negative excursion in the carbon isotope (delta(13)C) composition of carbonate minerals. Several extinction scenarios consistent with these observations have been put forward. Secular variation in the calcium isotope (delta(44/40)Ca) composition of marine sediments provides a tool for distinguishing among these possibilities and thereby constraining the causes of mass extinction. Here we report delta(44/40)Ca across the Permian-Triassic boundary from marine limestone in south China. The delta(44/40)Ca exhibits a transient negative excursion of approximately 0.3 per thousand over a few hundred thousand years or less, which we interpret to reflect a change in the global delta(44/40)Ca composition of seawater. CO(2)-driven ocean acidification best explains the coincidence of the delta(44/40)Ca excursion with negative excursions in the delta(13)C of carbonates and organic matter and the preferential extinction of heavily calcified marine animals. Calcium isotope constraints on carbon cycle calculations suggest that the average delta(13)C of CO(2) released was heavier than -28 per thousand and more likely near -15 per thousand; these values indicate a source containing substantial amounts of mantle- or carbonate-derived carbon. Collectively, the results point toward Siberian Trap volcanism as the trigger of mass extinction.
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Project description:In addition to their devastating effects on global biodiversity, mass extinctions have had a long-term influence on the history of life by eliminating dominant lineages that suppressed ecological change. Here, we test whether the end-Permian mass extinction (252.3 Ma) affected the distribution of tetrapod faunas within the southern hemisphere and apply quantitative methods to analyze four components of biogeographic structure: connectedness, clustering, range size, and endemism. For all four components, we detected increased provincialism between our Permian and Triassic datasets. In southern Pangea, a more homogeneous and broadly distributed fauna in the Late Permian (Wuchiapingian, ?257 Ma) was replaced by a provincial and biogeographically fragmented fauna by Middle Triassic times (Anisian, ?242 Ma). Importantly in the Triassic, lower latitude basins in Tanzania and Zambia included dinosaur predecessors and other archosaurs unknown elsewhere. The recognition of heterogeneous tetrapod communities in the Triassic implies that the end-Permian mass extinction afforded ecologically marginalized lineages the ecospace to diversify, and that biotic controls (i.e., evolutionary incumbency) were fundamentally reset. Archosaurs, which began diversifying in the Early Triassic, were likely beneficiaries of this ecological release and remained dominant for much of the later Mesozoic.
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Project description:The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) has long been proposed as having a causal relationship with the end-Triassic extinction event (?201.5 Ma). In North America and northern Africa, CAMP is preserved as multiple basaltic units interbedded with uppermost Triassic to lowermost Jurassic sediments. However, it has been unclear whether this apparent pulsing was a local feature, or if pulses in the intensity of CAMP volcanism characterized the emplacement of the province as a whole. Here, six geographically widespread Triassic-Jurassic records, representing varied paleoenvironments, are analyzed for mercury (Hg) concentrations and Hg/total organic carbon (Hg/TOC) ratios. Volcanism is a major source of mercury to the modern environment. Clear increases in Hg and Hg/TOC are observed at the end-Triassic extinction horizon, confirming that a volcanically induced global Hg cycle perturbation occurred at that time. The established correlation between the extinction horizon and lowest CAMP basalts allows this sedimentary Hg excursion to be stratigraphically tied to a specific flood basalt unit, strengthening the case for volcanic Hg as the driver of sedimentary Hg/TOC spikes. Additional Hg/TOC peaks are also documented between the extinction horizon and the Triassic-Jurassic boundary (separated by ?200 ky), supporting pulsatory intensity of CAMP volcanism across the entire province and providing direct evidence for episodic volatile release during the initial stages of CAMP emplacement. Pulsatory volcanism, and associated perturbations in the ocean-atmosphere system, likely had profound implications for the rate and magnitude of the end-Triassic mass extinction and subsequent biotic recovery.
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Project description:The end-Permian mass extinction, ?252 million years ago, is notable for a complex recovery period of ?5 Myr. Widespread euxinic (anoxic and sulfidic) oceanic conditions have been proposed as both extinction mechanism and explanation for the protracted recovery period, yet the vertical distribution of anoxia in the water column and its temporal dynamics through this time period are poorly constrained. Here we utilize Fe-S-C systematics integrated with palaeontological observations to reconstruct a complete ocean redox history for the Late Permian to Early Triassic, using multiple sections across a shelf-to-basin transect on the Arabian Margin (Neo-Tethyan Ocean). In contrast to elsewhere, we show that anoxic non-sulfidic (ferruginous), rather than euxinic, conditions were prevalent in the Neo-Tethys. The Arabian Margin record demonstrates the repeated expansion of ferruginous conditions with the distal slope being the focus of anoxia at these times, as well as short-lived episodes of oxia that supported diverse biota.
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Project description:Periods of oceanic anoxia have had a major influence on the evolutionary history of Earth and are often contemporaneous with mass extinction events. Changes in global (as opposed to local) redox conditions can be potentially evaluated using U system proxies. The intensity and timing of oceanic redox changes associated with the end-Permian extinction horizon (EH) were assessed from variations in (238)U/(235)U (?(238)U) and Th/U ratios in a carbonate section at Dawen in southern China. The EH is characterized by shifts toward lower ?(238)U values (from -0.37‰ to -0.65‰), indicative of an expansion of oceanic anoxia, and higher Th/U ratios (from 0.06 to 0.42), indicative of drawdown of U concentrations in seawater. Using a mass balance model, we estimate that this isotopic shift represents a sixfold increase in the flux of U to anoxic facies, implying a corresponding increase in the extent of oceanic anoxia. The intensification of oceanic anoxia coincided with, or slightly preceded, the EH and persisted for an interval of at least 40,000 to 50,000 y following the EH. These findings challenge previous hypotheses of an extended period of whole-ocean anoxia prior to the end-Permian extinction.
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Project description:The amniote clade Parareptilia is notable in that members of the clade exhibited a wide array of morphologies, were successful in a variety of ecological niches and survived the end-Permian mass extinction. In order to better understand how mass extinction events can affect clades that survive them, we investigate both the species richness and morphological diversity (disparity) of parareptiles over the course of their history. Furthermore, we examine our observations in the context of other metazoan clades, in order to identify post-extinction survivorship patterns that are present in the clade. The results of our study indicate that there was an early increase in parareptilian disparity, which then fluctuated over the course of the Permian, before it eventually declined sharply towards the end of the Permian and into the Triassic, corresponding with the end-Permian mass extinction event. Interestingly, this is a different trend to what is observed regarding parareptile richness, that shows an almost continuous increase until its overall peak at the end of the Late Permian. Moreover, richness did not experience the same sharp drop at the end of the Permian, reaching a plateau until the Anisian, before dropping sharply and remaining low, with the clade going extinct at the end of the Triassic. This observed pattern is likely to be due to the fact that, despite the extinction of several morphologically distinct parareptile clades, the procolophonoids, one of the largest parareptilian clades, were diversifying across the Permian-Triassic boundary. With the clade's low levels of disparity and eventually declining species richness, this pattern most resembles a 'dead clade walking' pattern.
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Project description:The end-Permian mass extinction event (∼252 Mya) is associated with one of the largest global carbon cycle perturbations in the Phanerozoic and is thought to be triggered by the Siberian Traps volcanism. Sizable carbon isotope excursions (CIEs) have been found at numerous sites around the world, suggesting massive quantities of 13C-depleted CO2 input into the ocean and atmosphere system. The exact magnitude and cause of the CIEs, the pace of CO2 emission, and the total quantity of CO2, however, remain poorly known. Here, we quantify the CO2 emission in an Earth system model based on new compound-specific carbon isotope records from the Finnmark Platform and an astronomically tuned age model. By quantitatively comparing the modeled surface ocean pH and boron isotope pH proxy, a massive (∼36,000 Gt C) and rapid emission (∼5 Gt C yr-1) of largely volcanic CO2 source (∼-15%) is necessary to drive the observed pattern of CIE, the abrupt decline in surface ocean pH, and the extreme global temperature increase. This suggests that the massive amount of greenhouse gases may have pushed the Earth system toward a critical tipping point, beyond which extreme changes in ocean pH and temperature led to irreversible mass extinction. The comparatively amplified CIE observed in higher plant leaf waxes suggests that the surface waters of the Finnmark Platform were likely out of equilibrium with the initial massive centennial-scale release of carbon from the massive Siberian Traps volcanism, supporting the rapidity of carbon injection. Our modeling work reveals that carbon emission pulses are accompanied by organic carbon burial, facilitated by widespread ocean anoxia.
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Project description:The role of ocean acidification in the end-Permian mass extinction is highly controversial with conflicting hypotheses relating to its timing and extent. Observations and experiments on living molluscs demonstrate that those inhabiting acidic settings exhibit characteristic morphological deformities and disordered shell ultrastructures. These deformities should be recognisable in the fossil record, and provide a robust palaeo-proxy for severe ocean acidification. Here, we use fossils of originally aragonitic invertebrates to test whether ocean acidification occurred during the Permian-Triassic transition. Our results show that we can reject a hypothesised worldwide basal Triassic ocean acidification event owing to the absence of deformities and repair marks on bivalves and gastropods from the Triassic Hindeodus parvus Conodont Zone. We could not, however, utilise this proxy to test the role of a hypothesised acidification event just prior to and/or during the mass extinction event. If ocean acidification did develop during the mass extinction event, then it most likely only occurred in the latest Permian, and was not severe enough to impact calcification.
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Project description:The end-Permian mass extinction (EPME) was the most severe extinction event in the past 540 million years, and the Siberian Traps large igneous province (STLIP) is widely hypothesized to have been the primary trigger for the environmental catastrophe. The killing mechanisms depend critically on the nature of volatiles ejected during STLIP eruptions, initiating about 300 kyr before the extinction event, because the atmosphere is the primary interface between magmatism and extinction. Here we report Ni isotopes for Permian-Triassic sedimentary rocks from Arctic Canada. The δ60Ni data range from -1.09‰ to 0.35‰, and exhibit the lightest δ60Ni compositions ever reported for sedimentary rocks. Our results provide strong evidence for global dispersion and loading of Ni-rich aerosol particles into the Panthalassic Ocean. Our data demonstrate that environmental degradation had begun well before the extinction event and provide a link between global dispersion of Ni-rich aerosols, ocean chemistry changes, and the EPME.
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Project description:The extent to which mass extinctions influence body size evolution in major tetrapod clades is inadequately understood. For example, the 'Lilliput effect,' a common feature of mass extinctions, describes a temporary decrease in body sizes of survivor taxa in post-extinction faunas. However, its signature on existing patterns of body size evolution in tetrapods and the persistence of its impacts during post-extinction recoveries are virtually unknown, and rarely compared in both geologic and phylogenetic contexts. Here, I evaluate temporal and phylogenetic distributions of body size in Permo-Triassic therocephalian and cynodont therapsids (eutheriodonts) using a museum collections-based approach and time series model fitting on a regional stratigraphic sequence from the Karoo Basin, South Africa. I further employed rank order correlation tests on global age and clade rank data from an expanded phylogenetic dataset, and performed evolutionary model testing using Brownian (passive diffusion) models. Results support significant size reductions in the immediate aftermath of the end-Permian mass extinction (ca. 252.3 Ma) consistent with some definitions of Lilliput effects. However, this temporal succession reflects a pattern that was underscored largely by Brownian processes and constructive selectivity. Results also support two recent contentions about body size evolution and mass extinctions: 1) active, directional evolution in size traits is rare over macroevolutionary time scales and 2) geologically brief size reductions may be accomplished by the ecological removal of large-bodied species without rapid originations of new small-bodied clades or shifts from long-term evolutionary patterns.
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