High‐resolution Lopingian (Late Permian) timescale of South China

Abstract

The Lopingian represents the last epoch of the Palaeozoic Era and is bracketed by two severe biotic mass extinctions associated with dramatic environmental changes. The Lopingian Epoch lasted about 7 millions years and was also bracketed by large volcanic eruptions with the Emeishan volcanics at the base and the Siberian traps at the top. Considerable data have accumulated recently and in this paper we attempt to summarize these findings in a high-resolution Lopingian (Late Permian) timescale that integrates currently available multiple biostratigraphic, isotope chemostratigraphic, geochronologic and magnetostratigraphic data. In South China at least 13 conodont zones, multiple polarity zones and large carbon isotope fluctuations in the Lopingian are recognized and provide the high-resolution calibration that is essential to study this Late Permian interval characterized by Earth's largest biotic extinction. We also present a global correlation chart for the marine Lopingian Series.

CA-TIMS zircon U–Pb dating of felsic ignimbrite from the Binchuan section: Implications for the termination age of Emeishan large igneous province

“…If this hypothesis is correct and the erosion occurred shortly after the deposition, our new CA-TIMS age (259.1 ± 0.5 Ma) for the felsic ignimbrite sample in the Binchuan section may provide an indirect constraint on the age of the G-L boundary. It is also worth emphasizing that our new date is in good agreement with the age of the G-L boundary suggested by Shen et al (2010).…”

Permian strontium isotope stratigraphy

“…The Early-Middle Permian downwards trend of the marine 87 Sr/ 86 Sr curve has been used to improve age constraints in multiple localities: for example, Japan (Miura et al 2004), Russia (Nurgalieva et al 2007), Spitsbergen (Ehrenberg (Burke et al 1982;Denison et al 1994;Morante 1996;Korte et al 2006;Kani et al 2008Kani et al , 2013Wignall et al 2009;Shen et al 2010;Tierney 2010;Liu et al 2013). These low values are the lowest recorded for the entire Palaeozoic and very close to the Phanerozoic minimum at the Middle-Late Jurassic transition (Jones et al 1994;McArthur et al 2012), and therefore an important chemostratigraphic marker.…”

Biostratigraphy constraining strontium isotopic stratigraphy and its application on the Lopingian (Late Permian)

“…For instance, different researchers followed different Permian-Tiassic boundary ages such as 252.6 Ma (Huang et al, 2008b) and 245 Ma (Hu et al, 2010) respectively in different strontium isotope stratigraphy researches in Zhongliangshan Section and Yangtianwo section of Huaying Mountain, even though both sections located in the Upper Yangtze Region in South China. If Guadalupian-Lopingian boundary defined as 259 Ma (Shen et al, 2010a), they will conclude that the time span of Lopingian is 6.4 and 14 Ma respectively. The inconsistent time spans will inevitably lead to a drastic difference of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr evolutionary curves.…”