Earth history was punctuated during the Permo-Carboniferous [300-250 million years (Myr) ago] by the longest and most severe glaciation of the entire Phanerozoic Eon. But significant uncertainty surrounds the concentration of CO(2) in the atmosphere through this time interval and therefore its role in the evolution of this major prePleistocene glaciation. Here, I derive 24 Late Paleozoic CO(2) ...

Modern study of the end-Permian mass extinction in the marine realm has involved intensive documentation of the fossil content, sedimentology, and chemostratigraphy of individual stratigraphic sections where the mass extinction interval is well preserved. These studies, coupled with innovative modeling of environmental conditions, have produced specific hypotheses for the mechanisms that caused...

The Triassic Period saw the first appearance of numerous amniote lineages (e.g. Lepidosauria, Archosauria, Mammalia) that defined Mesozoic ecosystems following the end Permian Mass Extinction, as well as the first major morphological diversification of crown-group reptiles. Unfortunately, much of our understanding of this event comes from the record of large-bodied reptiles (total body length >...

The mass extinction that occurred at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago, was the most devastating loss of life that Earth has ever experienced. It is estimated that ca. 96% of marine species were wiped out and land plants, reptiles, amphibians and insects also suffered. The causes of this catastrophic event are currently a topic of intense debate. The geological record points ...

Alexarasniidaefam. n. and Alexarasnia rossicagen. et sp. n. are described from the Upper Permian of European Russia. Systematic position of this enigmatic family within the infraclass Polyneoptera is unclear.

Article history: The Permian–Triassic Boun Received 16 August 2008 Received in revised form 3 February 2009 Accepted 11 February 2009 Available online 19 March 2009 Editor: M.L. Delaney

Anhuihymen medianelongata Huang and Nel, gen. nov. et sp. nov., first accurate Chinese Protohymenidae, is described from the Middle Permian Yinping Formation at Chaohu, Anhui Province, Southern China. This region was under a warm humid climate separated drier Laurussia by paleo-Thetys ocean during Permian. discovery shows that this group probably very widely distributed Permian, adapted to diff...

Periods of oceanic anoxia have had a major influence on the evolutionary history of Earth and are often contemporaneous with mass extinction events. Changes in global (as opposed to local) redox conditions can be potentially evaluated using U system proxies. The intensity and timing of oceanic redox changes associated with the end-Permian extinction horizon (EH) were assessed from variations in...

During the end-Permian mass extinction, marine ecosystems suffered a major drop in diversity, which was maintained throughout the Early Triassic until delayed recovery during the Middle Triassic. This depressed diversity in the Early Triassic correlates with multiple major perturbations to the global carbon cycle, interpreted as either intrinsic ecosystem or external palaeoenvironmental effects...