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The End Permian Mass Extinction

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The End Permian Mass Extinction
<b>Introduction</b><br>Think of a world which existed 290 million years ago. As you look out over the terane in front of you, you think that you are on an alien planet. You see volcanoes spewing ash and lava. Beside them is the ocean which is swarming with many different species of echinoderms, bryozoans and brachiopods. As you look down onto the sea floor you are amazed at the countless number of starfish and urchins. Some animals leave you can't even describe and you have no idea even what phylum they belong to. This is a world at its height in diversity of oceanic species. Millions of wonderous species existed at this time in the ocean and most of them will never appear again in earth's history. In the geologic time scale, a million years means nothing but this time things are different. In the blink of an eye things now look vastly different. The world once again looks alien but it looks worse than before. The sky is dark. Oceans are no longer teaming with life. The stench of rotting flesh and plants hangs in the air. The ground trembles under your feet. You feel an intense heat burning you face. You look up and see one of the greatest show of force mother nature has ever shown. Whole mountains are being thrown in the air. Lava and debris are everywhere. You ask yourself, what has happened? Will life ever exist on earth again?<br><br>The above paragraph is a primitive example of what the end of the Permian period could have looked like. Marine life was devastated, with a 57% reduction in the number of families (Sepkoski, 1986) and an estimated 96% extinction at the species level (Raup, 1979). Oceanic life suffered the most but terrestrial life forms were also greatly affected. There was a 77% reduction in the number of tetrapod families (Maxwell and Benton, 1987). All major groups of oceanic organisms were affected with the crinozoans (98%), anthozoans (96%), brachiopods (80%) and bryozoans (79%) suffering the greatest extinction (McKinney, 1987). The end of


Bibliography: /b><br><li>Baud, A., Magaritz, M. and Holser, W.T., 1989. Permian-Triassic of the Tethys: Carbon isotope studies. Geol. Rundsch., 78(2): 649-677.<br><li>Bramlette, M. N. 1965. Massive ectinctions in biota at the end of the Mesozoic time. Science 148: 1696-1699.<br><li>Clark, D.L., Wang, C.-Y., Orth, C.J. and Gilmore, J.S., 1986, Conodont survival and the low iridium abundances across the Permian-Triasic boundary in south China, Science, 233 (4767): 984-986.<br><li>Erwin. D. H., 1993. The Great Paleozoic crises: New York. Columbia University Press. <br><li>Eshet, Yoram., Rampino, Micheal., and Henk Visscher., 1995, Fungal event and palynological record of ecological crisis and recovery across the Permian-Triassic boundary, Geology. (23): 967-970.<br><li>Flugel, Eric., and Joachim Reinhardt, 1990, Uppermost Permian Reefs in Skyros (Greece) and Sichuan (China): Implications for the Late Permian Extinction Event. Society for Sedimentary Geology. V. 4, p. 502-518.<br><li>Fisher, A.G., 1963, Brackish oceans as the cause of the Permo-Triassic marine faunal crises. Problems in paleoclimatology, Wiley and Sons, New York: 566-574.<br><li>Futuyma, J. Douglas., 1998. Evolutionary Biology. Sunderland, Massachusetts. Sinauer Associates, Inc.<br><li>Harris, J.A., and Birch, P., 1992, Land reclamation and restoration, in Fry, J.C., et al., eds., Microbial control of pollution: Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, p. 269-291.<br><li>Hsu, K.J., He, Q., McKenzie, J.A., Weissert, H., Perch-Nielsen, K., Oberhansli H., Kelts, K., LaBrecque, J., Tauxe, L., Krahenbuhl, U., Percival, S.F., Jr., Wright, R., Karpoff, A.M., Peterson, N., Tucker, P., Poore, R.Z., Gombos, A.M., Pisciotto, K., Carmen, M.F., Jr. and Schreiber, E., 1982. Mass mortality and it 's environmental and evolutionary consequences. Science, 216: 249-256.<br><li>Leakey, Richard. 1995. The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of life and the future of mankind. Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Inc. New York.<br><li>Magaritz, M., Bar, R., Baud, A. and Holser, W.T., 1988, The carbon-isotope shift at the Permian/Triassic boundary in the southern Alps is gradual, Nature, 331 (6154): 337-339.<br><li>Maxwell W. Desmond., 1989, The End Permian Mass Extinction, New York, Columbia University Press. 182-170 p.<br><li>Maxwell, W.D. and Benton, M.J., 1987, Mass extinctions and data bases: changes in the interpretation of tetrapod mass extinction over the past 20 years. In P.J. Currie and E.H. Koster (eds), 4th Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems, Occasional Paper of the Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, Alberta, 3: 156-160.<br><li>Monastersky, R. 1993. Sudden death decimated ancient oceans. Science News, vol 146. p.38<br><li>Monastersky, R. 1997. Life 's closest call: what caused the spectacular extinctions at the end of the Permian period? Science News, vol. 151. p.74-75.<br><li>McKinney, M.L., 1987, Taxonomic selectivity and continuos variation in mass and background extinctions of marine taxa, Nature, 325 (6100):143-145.<br><li>Newell, N.D., 1963, Crises in the history of life, Scientific American, 208 (2): 76-92.<br><li>Schopf, T.J.M., 1974, Permo-Triassic extinction: relation to sea-floor spreading, Journal of Geology. 82 (2): 129-143.<br><li>Raup, D.M., 1979, Size of the Permo-Triassic bottleneck and its evolutionary implications, Science, 206 (4415): 217-218.<br><li>Renne, Paul., Zichao, Zhang., Richards, Mark., Black, Michael., and Basu, Asish. 1995. Synchrony and Causal Relations Between Permian-triassic Boundary Crises and Siberian Flood Volcanism. Science, vole 269. p. 1413-1416.<br><li>Stepkoski, J.J., Jr. 1986, Phanerozoic overview of mass extinctions. In D.M. Raup and D. Jabloknski (eds), Patters and processes in the history of life, Springer-Verlag, Berlin: 277-95.<br><li>Sweet, W.C., 1992. A conodont-based high resolution biostratigraphy for the Permo-Triassic boundary interval. In: W.C. Sweet et al. (Editors), Permo-Triassic events in the Eastern Tethys - an overview. Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 120-238.<br><li>Tappan, H. 1968. Primary production, isotopes, extinctions and the atmosphere. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeocology 4:187-210.<br><li>Wingnall P.B., and Hallam, A. 1993. <br>Griesbachian (Earliest Triassic) palaeoenvironmental changes in the Salt Range, Pakistan and southeast China and their bearing on the Permo-Triassic mass extinction. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 102: 215-237.<br><li>Xu Dao-Yi, and Yan Zheng., 1993, Carbon isotope and iridium event markers near the Permian/Triassic boundary in the Meishan section, Zhejiang Provence, China. Palaeoecology, 104: 171-176.<br><li>Xu, D.-Y., Ma, S,-L., Chai, Z.-F., Mao, X.-Y., Zhang, Q.-W. and Yang, Z.-Z., 1985, Abundance variation in iridium and trace elements at the Permian/Triassic boundary at Shangsi in China, Nature, 314 (6007): 154-156.<br><li>Xu, D.Y., Zhang, Q.W., Yan, Z., Sun, Y.Y., Chai, Z.F., and He, J.W., 1989. Astrogeological Events in China. Geological Publishing House, Beijing, Von Nostrand Reinhold, New York and Scottish Academic Press, Edinburg, 264pp.<br><br>These sources mostly have come from the University of Alberta. I used the "Gate" and databases to get periodicals and books. Some of the sources came from the internet. I emailed some of the authors and they sent their papers to me by email. Some I got from web sites. I have no web sites posted in my sources because all the only information I took was when the paper and its source was displayed. I didn 't quote or use internet sources because they are not reliable and most are based on opinions and not science.

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