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

如今，世界正受到气候变化、物种灭绝以及动植物繁衍生息地变化等关键问题的影响，因为海平面上升和气温上升影响了生物体的生存环境。我对二叠纪系统（2.99 - 2.52亿年前）的研究旨在阐明什么可能是最好的古代时间间隔，以显示这些问题如何影响过去地球上的生命。深时研究与近时研究的分辨率不匹配，但这些事件已经完成了全部过程，并提供了自然系统如何适应气候变化的例子。二叠纪记录了地球的倒数第二个冰河时代和最大的大规模灭绝。我对二叠纪末大灭绝的研究促成了一个新的共识，即它是由气候变化引起的，由一个名为西伯利亚陷阱的火山地区大量释放的气体引发的。气候变化的影响在海洋和陆地环境中都很明显，但相对时间问题尚未解决。

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.