Biostratigraphic Investigations: Refining the Geologic Time Scale to Calibrate the Past and Predict Climate Change and Mass Extinction Effects

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Today, the world is affected by critical issues such as climate change, species extinction, and changes to where plants and animals thrive because rising ocean levels and temperatures affect where organisms can live. My research on the Permian System (299 – 252 million years ago) aims to illuminate what may well be the best ancient time interval to show how these issues affected life on the planet in the past. Deep-time studies do not match resolution of near-time studies, but these events have run their full course and provide examples of how natural systems adapted as climate changed. The Permian records the Earth’s penultimate ice age and its largest mass extinction. My research on the end-Permian mass extinction has contributed to the emerging consensus that it resulted from climate change, triggered by a massive release of gases from a volcanic region called the Siberian Traps. The impact of climate change is evident in both marine and land-based environments, but the relative timing is not resolved.