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  • Review Article
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Environmental crises at the Permian–Triassic mass extinction

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 3, pages 197–214 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The link between the Permian–Triassic mass extinction (252 million years ago) and the emplacement of the Siberian Traps Large Igneous Province (STLIP) was first proposed in the 1990s. However, the complex cascade of volcanically driven environmental and biological events that led to the largest known extinction remains challenging to reconstruct. In this Review, we critically evaluate the geological evidence and discuss the current hypotheses surrounding the kill mechanisms of the Permian–Triassic mass extinction. The initial extrusive and pyroclastic phase of STLIP volcanism was coeval with a widespread crisis of terrestrial biota and increased stress on marine animal species at high northern latitudes. The terrestrial ecological disturbance probably started 60–370 thousand years before that in the ocean, indicating different response times of terrestrial and marine ecosystems to the Siberian Traps eruptions, and was related to increased seasonality, ozone depletion and acid rain, the effects of which could have lasted more than 1 million years. The mainly intrusive STLIP phase that followed is linked with the final collapse of terrestrial ecosystems and the rapid (around 60 thousand years) extinction of 81–94% of marine species, potentially related to a combination of global warming, anoxia and ocean acidification. Nevertheless, the ultimate reasons for the exceptional severity of the Permian–Triassic mass extinction remain debated. Improved geochronology (especially of terrestrial records and STLIP products), tighter ecological constraints and higher-resolution Earth system modelling are needed to resolve the causal relations between volcanism, environmental perturbations and the patterns of ecosystem collapse.

Key points

  • The Permian–Triassic mass extinction (252 million years ago) substantially reduced global biodiversity, with the extinction of 81–94% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate families.

  • Sedimentary, palaeontological and geochemical records of the mass extinction indicate that a cascade of environmental changes caused the extinction.

  • The environmental changes can be linked (and attributed to) the effects of volcanic emissions (for example, CO2, SO2, halogens and metals) during the eruption of the Siberian Traps Large Igneous Province.

  • The inferred volcanically driven environmental perturbations include: global warming, oceanic anoxia, oceanic acidification, ozone reduction, acid rain and metal poisoning.

  • The crisis on land probably started about 60–370 thousand years before that in the ocean, indicating the different response times of terrestrial and marine ecosystems to volcanism, but the reasons for the earlier terrestrial crisis remain poorly understood.

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Fig. 1: The PTME and its world.
Fig. 2: Marine mass extinction.
Fig. 3: Extinction selectivity during the PTME.
Fig. 4: Terrestrial mass extinction.
Fig. 5: Links between Siberian Traps, extinction, C-cycle changes and global warming.
Fig. 6: Extinction mechanisms.

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Data availability statement

Data from the Paleobiology Database used for the calculation of the marine extinction rate are available in Supplementary Data 1–3.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank S. Greene (University of Birmingham) for useful discussions on Earth system modelling. J.D.C., H.S. and D.C. acknowledge support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42172031, 92155201, 41821001, 42072025). J.D.C., H.S., D.C., J.H. and P.B.W. acknowledge “Ecosystem resilience and recovery from the Permo-Triassic crisis” project (EcoPT; grant NE/P013724/1), which is a part of the Biosphere Evolution, Transitions and Resilience (BETR) Program. S.C. acknowledges support from the Research Council of Norway (grant 301096 MAPLES, Young Research Talents). M.M.J. and Y.S. acknowledge support from the German Science Foundation (grant JO 219/16 within DFG Research Unit TERSANE/FOR 2332).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, School of Earth Science, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China

    Jacopo Dal Corso, Haijun Song & Daoliang Chu

  2. Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Sara Callegaro

  3. GeoZentrum Nordbayern, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Erlangen, Germany

    Yadong Sun & Michael M. Joachimski

  4. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Jason Hilton

  5. Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Stephen E. Grasby

  6. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Paul B. Wignall

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  3. Sara Callegaro
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  4. Daoliang Chu
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Contributions

J.D.C. led the development of the article. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript and building of the figures.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jacopo Dal Corso, Haijun Song or Paul B. Wignall.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Stable Isotope Database for Earth System Research: http://StabisoDB.org

Supplementary information

Glossary

Mass extinction

Global biological events of greatly elevated extinction rates.

Large Igneous Province

(LIPs). Rapidly emplaced (<1–5 Ma) volcanic provinces with areal extents >0.1 million km2 and volumes >0.1 million km3.

Radioisotope dating

Technique to determine the absolute age of rocks using radioactive decay.

Biostratigraphy

Technique to determine the relative age of sedimentary rocks using their fossil content.

Chemostratigraphy

The study of geochemical variations in sedimentary rocks; globally recorded chemostratigraphic changes are used to correlate sedimentary sequences.

Evolutionary fauna

A type of fauna that typically shows an increase in biodiversity following a logistic curve, for example, Cambrian fauna, Palaeozoic fauna and Modern fauna.

Signor–Lipps effect

A palaeontological principle that states that the fossil record of organisms is never complete.

Global Stratotype Section and Point

(GSSP). Reference stratigraphic section and level where boundaries between geological stages, for example, between the Permian and the Triassic, are defined.

Origination rates

The ratio of the number of newly occurring species or genera to the total number over a given geological period.

Spore tetrads

Four immature spore grains connected in a tetrahedral or tetragonal fashion, produced by meiotic microsporogenesis.

Pyroclastic

Volcanic rock produced by explosive volcanism and composed of lava fragments (ash, tephra and lapilli). Coarser pyroclastic fragments accumulate in proximity to the erupting vent, whereas finer particles can travel hundreds of kilometres.

Alkaline

Any rock of a magmatic series presenting a high content of alkali oxides (Na2O and K2O) relative to silica (SiO2).

Pyroxenitic mantle source

A mantle source dominated by the presence of pyroxene and lack of olivine, representing an enriched and very fertile mantle lithology.

Tholeiitic

Sub-alkaline series of magmatic rocks, which undergo iron enrichment during differentiation owing to their poorly oxidized state. Tholeiitic series originate from extensive partial melting of the mantle.

Sills

Tabular subvolcanic magma bodies, intruded roughly concordant with the general bedding (stratification or layering) of its host rocks.

Juvenile volatiles

Gas species that are dissolved in, or exsolved from, a magma and are thus newly introduced to the atmosphere when the magma reaches the Earth’s surface.

Conodont

The hard part of an extinct jawless vertebrate that is similar to an eel.

Oceanic anoxic event

(OAE). Interval of severely reduced dissolved oxygen content in the ocean.

Framboidal pyrite

Aggregates of pyrite (sulfide mineral, FeS2) with a ‘raspberry’ texture aspect. It is used as a palaeo-redox proxy.

Teratological sporomorphs

Pollen and spores that present congenital abnormalities, such as lack of full development and malformations in their structure.

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Dal Corso, J., Song, H., Callegaro, S. et al. Environmental crises at the Permian–Triassic mass extinction. Nat Rev Earth Environ 3, 197–214 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-021-00259-4

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