Calibrating the End-Permian Mass Extinction
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 ; et al.
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 () in δ13C over 90,000 years, and coincided with a δ13C excursion of −5 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.
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