Supported by the Hilton Johnson Endowment

"Permian mass extinctions"

Paul Wignall
University of Leeds

The end-Permian mass extinction is the greatest crisis in the history of life. For the past two decades it has been known to precisely coincide with the eruption of the Siberian Traps - one of the largest flood basalt provinces known. Most extinction models seek to find a link between these two phenomena. Less well known is the fact that the end-Permian mass extinction was preceded by an crisis in the Middle Permian, approximately 8 million years earlier, in which flood basalt volcanism again figures. The flood basalts in this case erupted in SW China and are known as the Emeishan Province. The lavas are interbedded with shallow marine limestones that contain an excellent record of Middle Permian fossils. It has thus been possible to examine both the volcanism and the extinction event in the same locations in SW China. This talk will look at the evidence from SW China, suggest an extinction mechanism involving explosive volcanism and compare this with the latest ideas for the end-Permian mass extinction.

Link to recent Science Paper closely related to this talk.