Publication Date:
2011-11-19
Description:
The end-Permian mass extinction was the most severe biodiversity crisis in Earth history. To better constrain the timing, and ultimately the causes of this event, we collected a suite of geochronologic, isotopic, and biostratigraphic data on several well-preserved sedimentary sections in South China. High-precision U-Pb dating reveals that the extinction peak occurred just before 252.28 +/- 0.08 million years ago, after a decline of 2 per mil ( per thousand) in delta(13)C over 90,000 years, and coincided with a delta(13)C excursion of -5 per thousand that is estimated to have lasted 〈/=20,000 years. The extinction interval was less than 200,000 years and synchronous in marine and terrestrial realms; associated charcoal-rich and soot-bearing layers indicate widespread wildfires on land. A massive release of thermogenic carbon dioxide and/or methane may have caused the catastrophic extinction.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Shen, Shu-zhong -- Crowley, James L -- Wang, Yue -- Bowring, Samuel A -- Erwin, Douglas H -- Sadler, Peter M -- Cao, Chang-qun -- Rothman, Daniel H -- Henderson, Charles M -- Ramezani, Jahandar -- Zhang, Hua -- Shen, Yanan -- Wang, Xiang-dong -- Wang, Wei -- Mu, Lin -- Li, Wen-zhong -- Tang, Yue-gang -- Liu, Xiao-lei -- Liu, Lu-jun -- Zeng, Yong -- Jiang, Yao-fa -- Jin, Yu-gan -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Dec 9;334(6061):1367-72. doi: 10.1126/science.1213454. Epub 2011 Nov 17.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Nanjing 210008, China. szshen@nigpas.ac.cn〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22096103" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
*Biodiversity
;
Carbon Dioxide
;
Carbon Isotopes
;
China
;
*Ecosystem
;
*Extinction, Biological
;
Fires
;
*Fossils
;
Geologic Sediments
;
Invertebrates/classification
;
Isotopes
;
Lead
;
Mass Spectrometry
;
Methane
;
Oceans and Seas
;
Plants/classification
;
Radioisotope Dilution Technique
;
Radiometric Dating
;
Seawater/chemistry
;
Time
;
Uranium
;
Vertebrates/classification
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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