End Permian Mass Extinction
Source: Science News
An international team of geologists has found the first direct evidence that volcanic eruptions in the southern part of Siberian Traps region 252 million years ago burned a large volume of coal and vegetation.
Image Credit: Astrobiology Magazine
The end-Permian extinction, also known as the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Great Dying, is the Earth’s most severe mass extinction that peaked about 252.3 million years ago. The catastrophe killed off nearly 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species on the planet over the course of thousands of years.
Calculations of seawater temperature indicate that at the peak of the extinction, the Earth underwent hot global warming, in which equatorial ocean temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
Among the possible causes of this event, and one of the longest hypothesized is that massive burning coal led to catastrophic global warming, which in turn was devastating to live.....Read more.
