RECOMPILATION OF LITHOLOGICAL PROXIES ACROSS THE PERMIAN-TRIASSIC BOUNDARY

Abstract

The largest mass extinction occurred near the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB; 251.902 ± 0.024 Ma; Shen et al., 2011), with the demise of more than 90% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species. This study expands sedimentary data bases created by Rees and others (2002) and the PALEOMAP Project by Scotese (2001). Lithological data was categorized as upper Permian (259.1-254.902 Ma) or Lower Triassic (251.902-247.2 Ma), and the paleogeographic information of the proxies were reconstructed using GPlates 2.0. These lithological proxies are compared with climate sensitivity simulations from the fully coupled comprehensive Community Climate System Model (CCSM3). The climate simulation using radiative forcing 4 x CO2 relative to preindustrial atmospheric levels (or 4 x CO2 PAL) is consistent the reconstruction of Late Permian whereas the most extreme scenario, climate conditions of a 12.7 x CO2 simulation with lower cloud optical depth may be comparable to the hothouse climate of the Early Triassic as inferred from the sedimentary record.