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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Calcic Paleosols In A Stratigraphic Context From Quaggasfontein, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa: Correlations In The Wapadsberg Pass Area And Implications For Late Permian Climate, Kaci B. Kus
Honors Theses
The Karoo Basin, South Africa, contains a reportedly continuous stratigraphic record spanning the terrestrial vertebrate extinction event equated with the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) in the marine record. The current hypothesis links this major loss in biodiversity and vertebrate turnover to a global change in climate towards aridification. Rapid climate change is interpreted to be reflected in continental rocks by a changeover from (1) greenish (Permian) to reddish (Triassic) mudrock, (2) a transition in the river architectures from meandering to braided regimes, and (3) wetland to calcic-bearing paleosols. Here, we present geochemical results on a 1.3-meter calcic paleoVertisol interval found ~34 …
Late Permian Paleoenvironmental Factors Expounded Through Analysis Of A Forest-Floor Paleosol Profile, Karoo Basin, South Africa, Cassi Knight
Honors Theses
Beaufort Group paleosols from the Karoo Basin, South Africa, record the paleoenvironmental conditions that existed prior to and after the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Paleosol exposures from Wapadsberg Pass, Eastern Cape Province, represent a well- preserved forest-floor litter overlying an interpreted inceptisol, a condition unique to the basin. Vegetation that colonized this landscape included a canopy of the gymnosperm Glossopteris and an understory of sphenopsids (Phyllotheca and Trizygia). Wapadsberg Pass paleosol sites were sampled for petrographic and geochemical analyses to constrain interpretations of Late Permian paleoenvironmental conditions that existed ~ 70 m below the Permian-Triassic Boundary (PTB). This project focuses on …