Phosphorus Cycle and Primary Productivity Changes in the Tethys Ocean During the Permian-Triassic Transition: Starving Marine Ecosystems

Effects of soil erosion and anoxic–euxinic ocean in the Permian–Triassic marine crisis

The largest mass extinction of biota in the Earth's history occurred during the Permian-Triassic transition and included two extinctions, one each at the latest Permian (first phase) and earliest Triassic (second phase). High seawater temperature in the surface water accompanied by euxinic deep-intermediate water, intrusion of the euxinic water to the surface water, a decrease in pH, and hyperc...

Temnospondyl ontogeny and phylogeny, a window into terrestrial ecosystems during the Permian-Triassic mass extinction

Temnospondyls are the most species-rich group of early amphibians, but specieslevel phylogenetic analyses of this large clade have so far only incompletely sampled the group. This study represents the largest and most comprehensive species-level phylogenetic study of Temnospondyli, sampling 99 taxa for 297 morphological characters from all seven continents through nearly 170 million years of th...

Plankton and productivity during the Permian–Triassic boundary crisis: An analysis of organic carbon fluxes

The marine phosphorus cycle

Phosphorus, the 13th element to be discovered on our planet, has a rich and varied history spanning match-making, bombs, fertilizer, and pesticides. Entire islands economies (Nauru) have collapsed in the mad hunt for phosphorus rock (Gowdy and McDaniel, 1999). Mineral reserves of this critical and valuable element are now being so rapidly mined from our Earth’s crust that we are approaching a p...

Anoxia/high temperature double whammy during the Permian-Triassic marine crisis and its aftermath

The Permian-Triassic mass extinction was the most severe biotic crisis in the past 500 million years. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the crisis, but few account for the spectrum of extinction selectivity and subsequent recovery. Here we show that selective losses are best accounted for by a combination of lethally warm, shallow waters and anoxic deep waters that acted to severely...