A sudden end-Permian mass extinction in South China

The base of the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone, Karoo Basin, predates the end-Permian marine extinction

“…The terrestrial calamity has been correlated with increasing global aridity in response to continued Siberian Trap magmatism, and considered to be time equivalent with the latest Permian phased extinctions in the marine record. Our late Changhsingian age from an ash bed in strata of the lower Lystrosaurus AZ at Nooitgedacht, some 340 ka older than the main marine extinction pulse 1 , indicates that the vertebrate-biozone boundary, irrespective of placement 18,29 , in the Karoo Basin, as currently recognized 27,32 , is not coincident with the marine crisis (Fig. 4).…”

“…he end-Permian extinction event represents the most catastrophic demise of the Phanerozoic biosphere, with an estimated "instantaneous" biodiversity loss exceeding 90% of marine invertebrate species 1,2 and a reportedly coeval turnover of up to 70% of terrestrial vertebrates 3,4 but see 5 . It is a deep-time model for ecosystem response to increasingly warmer climates, and considered a potential scenario comparable to changes now documented in today's Earth Systems 2,6 .…”

Ecological disturbance in tropical peatlands prior to marine Permian-Triassic mass extinction

“…Marine records show widespread environmental instability prior to the PTME (e.g., S.Z. Shen et al, 2019), and a new study of the Sydney Basin (New South Wales, Australia), suggests that the collapse of southern high-latitude floras occurred significantly before the onset of marine extinctions (Fielding et al, 2019), roughly coincident with onset of northern highlatitude marine stress (Grasby et al, 2011(Grasby et al, , 2015.…”

Conodonts and Carbon Isotopes during the Permian-Triassic Transition on the Napo Platform, South China

“…Alternatively, we note that both H. eurypyge and I. turgida 5.2 Implications for the mass extinction Shen et al (2011) estimated that the mass extinction during the PTB lasted for almost 200 kyr and was accompanied by a negative C isotope excursion. This interval was revised down to about 60±48 kyr by , and shortened further to ~31±31 kyr at Penglaitan section (Shen et al, 2018). Song et al (2013) demonstrated that there were two pulses of extinction straddling the PTB.…”

“…The largest mass extinction in geological history occurred around the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB). It has been studied for several decades and various extinction patterns (e.g., Shen et al, 2018Shen et al, , 2011Jiang et al, 2015;Wignall, 2015;Wang et al, 2014;Song et al, 2013;Yin et al, 2012) noted with numerous causes (e.g., Sun et al, 2018; Baresel et al, 2017;Ernst and Youbi, 2017;Foster et al, 2017;Grasby et al, 2016;Xiang et al, 2016;Chen Z-Q et al, 2015;Jiang et al, 2015;Song et al, 2014;Yin et al, 2014;Joachimski et al, 2012;Sun et al, 2012) proposed, but debate on the timing and nature of the crisis continues. Much of this discussion has been focused on sections in South China, notably the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) at Meishan and the auxiliary GSSP at Shangsi.…”