A Review of Stratigraphic, Geochemical, and Paleontologic Data of the Terrestrial End-Permian Record in the Karoo Basin, South Africa

The Karoo Basin has long been considered to contain the type stratigraphic succession for the terrestrial expression of the end-Permian mass extinction. A detailed extinction model, based on biostratigraphic and geologic data, has proposed rapid environmental change that coincides with a vertebrate biozone boundary, which was postulated to have been caused by increased aridity. Our sedimentologic, geochronologic, palaeomagnetic, and geochemical data collected from reported boundary sections, show that the link between the floral and faunal turnover and marine end-Permian event is tenuous. A review of existing, as well as our own palaeontological data, interpreted within a robust stratigraphic and sedimentologic framework, further indicate that ecological change was more subtle and protracted than currently modeled, and reflects the complex way in which the ancient Karoo landscape responded to changes in several extrinsic factors.