Abrupt and Gradual Extinction Among Late Permian Land Vertebrates in the Karoo Basin, South Africa

2005/01/21 by Peter D. Ward, Jennifer Botha, Roger Buick +5 · 25 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils #Evolution and Paleontology Studies

paper · doi:10.1126/science.1107068

openalex publication_date 2005/01/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

The Karoo basin of South Africa exposes a succession of Upper Permian to Lower Triassic terrestrial strata containing abundant terrestrial vertebrate fossils. Paleomagnetic/magnetostratigraphic and carbon-isotope data allow sections to be correlated across the basin. With this stratigraphy, the vertebrate fossil data show a gradual extinction in the Upper Permian punctuated by an enhanced extinction pulse at the Permian-Triassic boundary interval, particularly among the dicynodont therapsids, coinciding with negative carbon-isotope anomalies.

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• Extinction event [wikipedia]
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