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The carbon-isotope shift at the Permian/Triassic boundary in the southern Alps is gradual

Nature volume 331, pages 337–339 (1988)Cite this article

Abstract

Carbon isotope ratios in marine carbonate rocks have been shown to shift at some of the time boundaries associated with extinction events; for example, Cretaceous/Tertiary1 and Ordovician/ Silurian2. The Permian/Triassic boundary, the greatest extinction event of the Phanerozoic3, is also marked by a large δ13C depletion4,5. New carbon isotope results from sections in the southern Alps show that this depletion did not actually represent a single event, but was a complex change that spanned perhaps a million years during the late Permian and early Triassic. These results suggest that the Permian/Triassic (P/Tr) extinction may have been in part gradual and in part 'stepwise'6,7, but was not in any case a single catastrophic event.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Isotopes Department, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

    Mordeckai Magaritz

  2. Geologisches Institut, Universitat, Schlossgarten 5, D-8520, Erlangen, FRG

    Richard Bart

  3. Musee geologique, Palais de Rumine, CH-1005, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Aymon Baud

  4. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, 97403, USA

    William T. Holser

Authors
  1. Mordeckai Magaritz
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  2. Richard Bart
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  3. Aymon Baud
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  4. William T. Holser
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Magaritz, M., Bart, R., Baud, A. et al. The carbon-isotope shift at the Permian/Triassic boundary in the southern Alps is gradual. Nature 331, 337–339 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/331337a0

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