The Carboniferous and early Permian were critical intervals in the diversification of early four-limbed vertebrates (tetrapods), yet the major patterns of diversity and biogeography during this time remain unresolved. Previous estimates suggest that global tetrapod diversity rose continuously across this interval and that habitat fragmentation following the 'Carboniferous rainforest collapse' (...

The Permian-Triassic bottleneck has long been thought to have drastically altered the course of echinoid evolution, with the extinction of the entire echinoid stem group having taken place during the end-Permian mass extinction. The Early Triassic fossil record of echinoids is, however, sparse, and new fossils are paving the way for a revised interpretation of the evolutionary history of echino...

Atokan-age units in the Permian Basin record a 2-order transgression, with aerially restricted, lower Atokan fluvial to shallow-marine siliciclastics followed by pervasive carbonate deposition. In general, Atokan-age siliciclastics dominated deposition in the west of the Permian Basin while carbonate deposition dominated throughout the rest of the basin. Predominance of carbonate facies across ...

Recent studies suggest a marked expansion of glacial ice across much of Gondwana beginning in the earliest Permian. Because expansion of glacial ice results in a lowering of sea level, the imprint of ice expansion should be evident worldwide as significant exposure event, hiatuses, or other evidence for sea level drop at or near the Pennsylvanian–Permian boundary. This literature review investi...

Based on seven measured sections from Svalbard, the marine strata of the Permian Kapp Starostin Formation are arranged into seven transgressive–regressive sequences (TR1–TR7) of c. 4– 5 Ma average duration, each bound by a maximum regressive surface. Facies, including heterozoandominated limestones, spiculitic cherts, sandstones, siltstones and shales, record deposition within inner, middle and...

The transition during the Permian–Triassic interval from brachiopod-rich benthic marine assemblages to communities with diverse molluscs has been well constrained by measures of global taxonomic richness but its ecological context has not been studied using quantitative relative abundance data. New relative abundance data from Early, Middle, and Late Permian silicified fossil assemblages from o...

Analysis of stacked Permo-Pennsylvanian palaeosols from north-central Texas documents the influence of palaeolandscape position on pedogenesis in aggradational depositional settings. Palaeosols of the Eastern shelf of the Midland basin exhibit stratigraphic trends in the distribution of soil horizons, structure, rooting density, clay mineralogy and colour that record long-term changes in soil-f...

Proxy geochemical records from high-latitude, ice-proximal deposits have the potential to provide key insights into past icehouse climates, but such records are rare. The Permian System of eastern Australia contains a rich record of environmental and climatic changes that occurred in areas proximal to glaciation during the acme and waning stages of the late Paleozoic ice age. Within this succes...

We describe the edopoid temnospondyl Nigerpeton ricqlesi from the Upper Permian Moradi Formation of northern Niger on the basis of two partial skulls and tentatively associated postcranial material. This crocodile-like taxon displays several edopoid characters states such as a long prenarial region with enlarged premaxillae, elongated vomers, large, posteriorly tapering choanae. and a jugal tha...

Recent evidence quite convincingly indicates that the Late Permian biotic crisis was in fact a binary extinction with a distinct end-Guadalupian extinction pulse preceding the major terminal end-Permian Tartarian event by 5 million years. In addition anoxia appears to be closely associated with each of these end-Paleozoic binary extinctions. Most leading models cannot explain both anoxia and th...