Earth Sciences Commons^™

Extinction Pattern Of Reef Ecosystems In Latest Permian, Yasheng Wu, Jiasong Fan, Hongxia Jiang, Wan Yang

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Studies of two Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) sections on top of a Changhsingian reef in Ziyun, Guizhou Province, southwestern China indicate that the end-Permian mass extinction of reef ecosystems occurred in two steps. The first step is the extinction of all stenotropic organisms such as calcisponges and fusulinids in the latest Permian (in the Clarkina yini conodont zone). The biota after the first extinction is simple, comprising eurytropic organisms including microgastropods, ostracods, and some small burrowing organisms, or only algal mats. At the beginning of the Early Triassic (i.e. the beginning of the Hindeodus parvus zone), the environments became anoxic, and …