COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Vertebrate Extinction and Recovery Patterns in the Karoo Basin Across the Permo/Triassic Boundary, South Africa

2亿5千万年前的二叠纪末期的大灭绝是地球历史上影响最大的一次，据估计当时地球上所有物种的80-90%都灭绝了。到目前为止，还没有发现任何公认的机制。本研究将通过在南非卡鲁盆地收集大量脊椎动物化石，并将它们的发生与测量的地层剖面联系起来，探索二叠纪末期陆地生物灭绝的速度和模式。它们消失的时间范围将用磁地层学来校准。由此得出的数据应该能显示出在非海洋环境中，物种灭绝是快速还是缓慢的，从而为因果关系提供线索。它还应该显示陆地上的灭绝是否与海洋中的灭绝同步。

9903382WardThe mass extinction at the end of the 250 million-year-old Permian Period was the most consequential in Earth history, causing an estimated 80-90% of all species then living on Earth to die out. To date, no accepted mechanism has been discovered. This research will explore the tempo and pattern of extinction among land life at the end of the Permian by collecting large numbers of vertebrate fossils from the Karoo Basin of South Africa, and tying their occurrence to measured stratigraphic sections. The time frame of their disappearance will be calibrated using magnetostratigraphy. The resulting data should show whether the extinction was rapid or slow in non-marine environments, and thus provide clues to causation. It should also show whether the extinctions on land were synchronous with those in the sea.