7.

Describe the Permian-Triassic Extinction

Source: https://www.britannica.com/science/Permian-extinction

Permian extinction, also called Permian-Triassic extinction or end-Permian extinction, a series

of extinction pulses that contributed to the greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history. Many
geologists and paleontologists contend that the Permian extinction occurred over the course of
15 million years during the latter part of the Permian Period (299 million to 252 million years
ago). However, others claim that the extinction interval was much more rapid, lasting only about
200,000 years, with the bulk of the species loss occurring over a 20,000-year span near the end
of the period. The Permian extinction was characterized by the elimination of over 95 percent of
marine and 70 percent of terrestrial species. In addition, over half of all taxonomic families
present at the time disappeared. This event ranks first in severity of the five major extinction
episodes that span geologic time.

Shallow warm-water marine invertebrates, which included the trilobites, rugose, tabulate corals,
and two large groups of echinoderms (blastoids and crinoids), show the most-protracted and
greatest losses during the Permian extinction. Using the maximum number of different genera
in the middle part of the Guadalupian Epoch (about 272.3 million to 259.8 million years ago) as
a benchmark, extinction within marine invertebrate faunas significantly reduced the number of
different genera by 12 to 70 percent by the beginning of the Capitanian Age some 266 million
years ago. The diversity levels of many of these faunas plummeted to levels lower than at any
prior time in the Permian Period. Extinctions at the boundary between the Guadalupian and
Lopingian epochs (259.8 million to 252.2 million years ago) were even more severe—bordering
on catastrophic—with a reduction of 70 to 80 percent from the Guadalupian generic maxima. A
great many invertebrate families, which were highly successful prior to these extinctions, were
affected.
By the early part of the Lopingian, specifically the Wuchiapingian Age (some 259.8 million to
254 million years ago), the now substantially reduced invertebrate fauna attempted to diversify
again, but with limited success. Many were highly specialized groups, and more than half of
these became extinct before the beginning of the Changhsingian Age (some 254 million years
ago), the last age of the period. Marine invertebrate faunas during the Lopingian accounted for
only about 10 percent or less of the Guadalupian faunal maxima; that is, about 90 percent of the
Permian extinctions were accomplished before the start of the Changhsingian Age.

Disruptive ecological changes eventually reduced marine invertebrates to crisis levels (about 5
percent of their Guadalupian maxima)—their lowest diversity since the end of the Ordovician
Period. The final extinction episode, sometimes referred to as the terminal Permian crisis, while
very real, took 15 million years to materialize and likely eliminated many ecologically struggling
faunas that had already been greatly reduced by previous extinction episodes leading up to the
terminal Permian crisis.

The Permian extinction was not restricted to marine invertebrates. Several groups of aquatic
vertebrates, such as the acanthodians, thought to be the earliest jawed fishes, and the
placoderms, a group of jawed fishes with significant armour, were also eliminated. Notable
terrestrial groups, such as the pelycosaurs (fin-backed reptiles), Moschops (a massive mammal-
like reptile), and numerous families of insects also met their demise. In addition, a number of
groups (such as sharks, bony fishes, brachiopods, bryozoans, ammonoids, therapsids, reptiles,
and amphibians) experienced significant declines by the end of the Permian Period.