Earth-Life Transitions: Linked geochemical/biotic response to massive volcanic CO2 injection during the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction

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Atmospheric CO2 rise is one of the most pressing societal and scientific issues, but future projections ofsystem behavior often rely heavily on models rather than data. Earth underwent a very relevant analogexperiment 200 million years ago, and this project seeks to learn and abstract from that experiment. TheCO2 release associated with the Triassic-Jurassic (T-J) boundary is estimated to have risen at a ratecomparable to the present-day (as a result of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province volcanism, CAMP),and tellingly, it was associated with a mass extinction. Notably, representatives of the fauna that inhabitstoday's seas, the so-called modern fauna were preferentially negatively affected by the T-J event versus other mass extinctions, making the T-J perhaps the most relevant mass extinction with respect to the present-day impact of high CO2 levels on the biosystem. The T-J event is arguably the least studied of the mass extinctions that frame the Mesozoic, and itrepresents an underutilized opportunity to investigate a geologically rapid injection of CO2 into the Earthsystem. The results of this CO2 pulse are quantifiable, and will serve to establish new models of systemresponse to punctuated perturbations. The PIs believe that using novel geochemical tracers forweathering and redox, coupled with biofacies analysis, will result in a paradigm shift in our knowledge ofsuch an event. The proxies will inform a novel model that links a solid Earth model, carbon cycle model,and ecological model. This project will help to elucidate the details of the most significant mass extinctionto affect the modern fauna. Moreover, the new models developed for the T-J event will have relevance forother mass extinctions, including the ongoing Anthropocene event.