The end-Permian mass extinction wiped out 90 percent of land and sea species, and researchers have now identified a new contributing factor.
The most severe extinction event our planet has ever seen is informally known as the Great Dying. The primary cause of the event has been identified as a series of huge volcanic eruptions, with volcanic ash increasing temperatures, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and ocean acidification.
It's one of the more mysterious extinctions. The eruptions in Siberia play a crucial role in the destruction, but the details on how they unleashed it are not clear. The geological record provides a lot of clues, pointing to a spike and drop in oxygen, an unusual release of volatiles, a loss of ozone, and ocean chemistry changes.
There is a new study showing that there is a different set of volcanoes in South China.
This doesn't change the existing suggestions. It could be a big, complex scene of carnage.
The end-Permian global environmental disaster may have had multiple causes among marine and non-marine species, according to Michael Rampino from New York University.
The Institute of Geology and Palaeontology is in the city of Nanjing.
The copper-rich minerals show widespread volcanic activity.
The researchers found copper, mercury, and other mineral deposits in southern China that were similar to the age of the Epidemiological Profile of Medicine. The minerals were exposed to sulfur-rich emissions.
The volcanic eruptions and layers of volcanic ash that settled on these rocks at this particular time in Earth's history are what led to that. The clouds of sulfuric acid particles would have made the Earth cooler.
The researchers think that a volcanic winter period could have lowered temperatures so much that they would have a double threat to their existence, giving animals, insects, and marine life a double threat to their existence.
"Sulfuric acid atmospheric aerosols produced by the eruptions may have been the cause of rapid global cooling of several degrees, prior to the severe warming seen across the end-Permian mass-extinction interval," says Rampino.
The huge lava flows from the eruptions in Siberia would have released enough carbon dioxide to warm the planet and reduce ocean oxygenation.
The impact of major volcanic events depends on a number of factors, including how powerful and widespread the eruptions are, how high in the atmosphere the volcanic cloud reaches, and how much sulfur dioxide is in it.
The cooling scenario seems to have happened before the effects of the Siberian Traps eruptions hit, and it means scientists are looking at a more complex combination of events.
The researchers wrote in their paper that the uncertainties have led to suggestions that outgassing from the STLIP alone may not have been enough to cause the global climate and environmental changes associated with the event.
Science Advances has published the research.
