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Mercury evidence for pulsed volcanism during the end-Triassic mass extinction

2017; National Academy of Sciences; Volume: 114; Issue: 30 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1073/pnas.1705378114

1091-6490

Lawrence Percival, Micha Ruhl, Stephen P. Hesselbo, Hugh C. Jenkyns, Tamsin A. Mather, Jessica H. Whiteside,

Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils

Significance The end of the Triassic Period (∼201.5 million years ago) witnessed one of the largest mass extinctions of animal life known from Earth history. This extinction is suggested to have coincided with and been caused by one of the largest known episodes of volcanic activity in Earth’s history. This study examines mercury concentrations of sediments from around the world that record this extinction. Mercury is emitted in gaseous form during volcanism, and subsequently deposited in sediments. We find numerous pulsed elevations of mercury concentrations in end-Triassic sediments. These peaks show that the mass extinction coincided with large-scale, episodic, volcanism. Such episodic volcanism likely perturbed the global environment over a long period of time and strongly delayed ecological recovery.