Palaeosol stratigraphy across the Permian–Triassic boundary, Bogda Mountains, NW China: Implications for palaeoenvironmental transition through earth's largest mass extinction

Terrestrial paleoenvironment characterization across the Permian–Triassic boundary in South China

“…The Dongchuan Formation represents the first evidence of redbeds in South China with depositional environment similar to what is known from the Late Permian of North China (Shu and Norris, 1999;Yang et al, 2010;Thomas et al, 2011;Stevens et al, 2011), South Africa (Ward et al, 2000;Gastaldo et al, 2005;Coney et al, 2007), Russia (Benton et al, 2004), Europe (Körner et al, 2003;Schneider et al, 2006;Bourquin et al, 2006Bourquin et al, , 2007Bercovici et al, 2009b), and the Early to Middle Permian of North America (DiMichele et al, 2004(DiMichele et al, , 2005b(DiMichele et al, , 2007, with climate change to drier conditions (Sheldon, 2005). During the end of the Paleozoic, plants had been tracking the effects of global climate change , and South China represents the ultimate place where wetland floras still thrived close to the PTB (DiMichele et al, 2001(DiMichele et al, , 2006bHilton and Cleal, 2007).…”

Terrestrial evidence for a two-stage mid-Paleocene biotic event

“…Major elemental composition ratios (CIA-K, salinization) were used as inputs for mean annual precipitation and mean annual temperature climofunctions derived from modern soil weathering profile relationships (Sheldon et al, 2002). These climofunction relationships have been robustly applied throughout the Cenozoic (e.g., Retallack, 2007;Torres and Gaines, 2013) on many continents (e.g., Thomas et al, 2011;Sheldon et al, 2012), and despite substantial standard error on absolute mean annual temperature and precipitation estimates (MAT = ± 4°C; MAP = ± 182 mm yr −1 ), both relationships have been demonstrated to describe smallermagnitude changes reliably when used as a vector-of-change or trending measurement (e.g., Sheldon and Tabor, 2009;. In order to verify trends described by these methods, these results were also compared to the magnitude of change in: 1) mean annual temperature estimates derived from Inceptisol clayeyness (e.g., Sheldon, 2006), and 2) mean annual precipitation estimates derived from depth-to-Bk horizon measurements (e.g., Retallack, 2005), wherever possible within the Cerro Bayo section.…”

Microbial–algal community changes during the latest Permian ecological crisis: Evidence from lipid biomarkers at Cili, South China

“…This relationship may indicate a reduction in terrestrial floral biomass, reducing the fuel for wildfires , and/or a shift from high-story coniferous forests to low-story lycopsid-bryophyte disaster vegetation, which is less prone to wildfires Hochuli et al, 2010;Herman et al, 2011). However, other explanations for lower Cor/P ratios in the microbialite are possible, e.g., sea-level rise, increasing the distance from sources of terrestrial organic matter (Nabbefeld et al, 2010a), or increased climatic humidity, limiting the potential for wildfire ignition (Thomas et al, 2011). More work on the significance of the Cor/P proxy will be needed to constrain these possibilities.…”