Zircon U-Pb Geochronology Links the End-Triassic Extinction with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province

2013/03/22 by Terrence Blackburn, Paul E. Olsen, Samuel A. Bowring +6 · 20 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Geological and Geochemical Analysis #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils

paper · doi:10.1126/science.1234204

openalex publication_date 2013/03/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

The end-Triassic extinction is characterized by major losses in both terrestrial and marine diversity, setting the stage for dinosaurs to dominate Earth for the next 136 million years. Despite the approximate coincidence between this extinction and flood basalt volcanism, existing geochronologic dates have insufficient resolution to confirm eruptive rates required to induce major climate perturbations. Here, we present new zircon uranium-lead (U-Pb) geochronologic constraints on the age and duration of flood basalt volcanism within the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province. This chronology demonstrates synchroneity between the earliest volcanism and extinction, tests and corroborates the existing astrochronologic time scale, and shows that the release of magma and associated atmospheric flux occurred in four pulses over about 600,000 years, indicating expansive volcanism even as the biologic recovery was under way.

Citations

• Trace element distribution coefficients in alkaline series
• Extensive 200-Million-Year-Old Continental Flood Basalts of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province
• Partial Melt Distributions from Inversion of Rare Earth Element Concentrations

Cited by

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• Severe selenium depletion in the Phanerozoic oceans as a factor in three global mass extinction events
• Anthropogenic-scale CO2 degassing from the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province as a driver of the end-Triassic mass extinction
• How Large Igneous Provinces affect global climate, sometimes cause mass extinctions, and represent natural markers in the geological record
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• Resolving the age of the Puchezh-Katunki impact structure (Russia) against alteration and inherited 40Ar* – No link with extinctions
• Changes in terrestrial floras at the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary in Europe
• Late Permian-Early Jurassic Paleogeography of Western Tethys and the World
• Climates of the Late Triassic: Perspectives, Proxies and Problems
• A comprehensive anatomical and phylogenetic evaluation of Dilophosaurus wetherilli (Dinosauria, Theropoda) with descriptions of new specimens from the Kayenta Formation of northern Arizona
• Hot-house climate during the Triassic/Jurassic transition: The evidence of climate change from the southern hemisphere (Salt Range, Pakistan)
• Atlantic Ocean [wikipedia]
• Central Atlantic magmatic province [wikipedia]
• Extinction event [wikipedia]
• Flood basalt [wikipedia]
• Late Triassic [wikipedia]