{"id":540,"date":"2016-08-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/cage\/2016\/08\/24\/arctic-clues-on-worst-mass-extinction-of-life\/"},"modified":"2023-04-04T10:33:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T08:33:29","slug":"arctic-clues-on-worst-mass-extinction-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/cage\/2016\/08\/24\/arctic-clues-on-worst-mass-extinction-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Arctic clues on worst mass extinction of life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extreme global warming \u00a0caused a severe mass extinction of life on Earth 252 million years ago. It took life up to 9 million years to recover. New study finds clues in the Arctic as to why this recovery took so long.<\/h4>\n

Text: Maja Sojtaric<\/h6>\n

<\/p>\n

96 percent of marine species, and 70 percent of terrestrial life died off in the Permian-Triassic extinction even<\/a>t, as geologists know it. All life on Earth today is descended from the species that survived. It is also known as The Great Dying for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mass extinction was likely triggered by a explosive event of volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia<\/a>. These eruptions lasted for a million years and emitted enormous amounts of volatiles, such as carbon dioxide and methane, which made our planet unbearably hot.\u201d says Jochen Knies, researcher at CAGE.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Putorana Plateau, is composed of Siberian Traps. They are rock formations created by vast volumes of basaltic lava, released by the same volcanic eruptions that caused the mass extinction 252 million years ago. The lava covered a large expanse of Siberia in a flood basalt event. Today the area covered is about 2 million square kilometres. Photo: Vitaly Repin\/flickr.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Life took andextraordinary long time to recover from this extinction, from 5 to 9 million years. Why recovery was so delayed, has remained a mystery.<\/p>\n

Clues are in the Arctic<\/h2>\n

Knies is the co-author of a study in Geology<\/a>\u00a0that took to the Arctic to look for clues as to what limited return of life to world\u00b4s oceans. The study was a collaboration with Geological Survey of Canada<\/a> and University of Calgary<\/a>. The results of the study illustrate potential long-term impacts on marine ecosystems in response to global warming.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat used to be the northwestern continental margin of the supercontinent Pangaea is now Canadian High Arctic. There we found evidence in geological records for a significant nutrient gap during this pre-recovery period. This means that global oceans were severely poor in nutrients such as nitrogen,\u201d says Knies.<\/p>\n

This nutrient gap is most likely the result of extremely high ocean surface temperatures in the aftermath of the extinction.<\/p>\n

Be cool stay alive<\/h2>\n

Our oceans are not a single body of water. They are comprised of layers and boundaries based on temperature (thermocline<\/a>) and nutrients (nutricline<\/a>) among others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe high temperatures caused deepening of the thermocline and nutricline in the ocean so that upwelling of nutrients from the bottom to the surface of ocean ceased. With that the marine algae productivity was stalled,\u201d according to Knies.<\/p>\n

And without algae, which are the base of the food chain, the life in the ocean did not thrive.\u00a0Once oceans finally started cooling, 6-7 million years after the extinction, nutrient rich waters returned to the surface.<\/p>\n

\"Multiple_crinoids_By
Crinoids are marine animals that almost got wiped out in the Great Dying. But they managed to recover and are now an abundant and diverse species. Photo: Alexander Vasenin\/wikimedia commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe boundaries that kept the nutrients from reaching the surface were weakened and the ocean waters were mixed. This caused the upwelling of nutrients, resuscitating the oceans, and leading to an explosion of life. The ecosystem voids created by the worst mass extinction in Earth history were finally filled.\u201d states Jochen Knies.<\/p>\n

In many ways the Permian-Triassic mass extinction reset the evolution of life, and paved the way for evolution of dinosaurs. They, in turn, died off in another mass extinction<\/a> 66 million years ago. Today some scientists argue that we are facing a new mass extinction period<\/a>, mostly caused by human activities.<\/p>\n

Citation: Grasby, S.E., Beauchamp, B., Knies, J. ( 2016)\u00a0Early Triassic productivity crises delayed recovery from world\u2019s worst mass extinction, Geology\u00a0v. 44\u00a0<\/span>no. 9\u00a0<\/span>p. 779-782.\u00a0doi:10.1130\/G38141.1<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Extreme global warming \u00a0caused a severe mass extinction of life on Earth 252 million years … <\/p>\n

Read more \u00abArctic clues on worst mass extinction of life\u00bb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123546,"featured_media":543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nArctic clues on worst mass extinction of life - CAGE, Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/site.uit.no\/cage\/2016\/08\/24\/arctic-clues-on-worst-mass-extinction-of-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arctic clues on worst mass extinction of life - 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