In a unique academic precedent, a team of researchers - from "Geomar Helmholtz Ocean Research" (GFZ GEOFORSCHUNGSZENTRUM POTSDAM) and "Helmholtz Center" (HELMHOLTZ Center) in Potsdam, Germany, in addition to Canadian and Italian universities - developed for the first time a scientific model that explains the major events that Led to the Great Extinction.

The model accurately determines the contents of the cumulative carbon dioxide that was present in the atmosphere at the time, and it is frightening that the rates we live with today are nearly 14 times higher than those mentioned above.

Scientists agreed that the end of the era of the dinosaurs had occurred about 66 million years ago, but 252 million years ago on the time boundaries between the Permian period (the sixth of the six ages of the Era of Antiquity and the Era of Good News) and the Triassic (the first and shortest of the three ages of the Middle Life period The Earth has witnessed a great mass extinction, with about 3 quarters of all species on Earth becoming extinct, and about 95% of all species in the ocean.

Numerous studies have been published that interpreted this mass extinction as a result of a massive volcanic eruption in an area of ​​land called "Siberian Traps", but the exact sequence of events that led to the extinction remains an important point of research to this day.

Researchers studied boron isotopes in the calcareous shells of humeral legged fossils (Didier Discons - Wikipedia)

Shells and boron isotopes

An international team of researchers led by Hana Yurikova studied boron isotopes in the calcareous shells of brachial-legged fossils, which are clams or oysters-like creatures.

It is known that the limestone shells of living organisms differ slightly in their chemical composition according to the different pH of the seas in which they live, and this means that the pH value of the oceans that have long disappeared can be determined by analyzing the remains of the shells preserved as fossils in the rock record.

The team used the latest SIMS ionic mass spectrometer (SIMS), which enabled them to measure the isotopic composition of fragments directly on the studied samples with a micrometer scale. Thus, they were able to determine the isotope composition of boron even in the smallest parts of the bivalve shell fragments. Ocean acidity in the temporal boundaries between the Permian and Triassic periods.

Acidity and carbon dioxide

Based on the close correlation between the pH in the ocean and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the team was able, based on the results of measuring boron and carbon isotopes, to reconstruct the changes in the carbon dioxide that was present in the atmosphere at the beginning of the Great Extinction, then they used an innovative geochemical model to study the impact of Carbon dioxide on the environment.

The results showed that the volcanic eruptions from the then-active Basalt Province "Siberian Traps" released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Volcanic eruptions from the then active province of basalt "Siberian Traps" released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (James St. John - Wikipedia)

This large emission of carbon dioxide lasted for several thousand years, and led to a significant global warming in the late Permian, causing the ocean to warm and acidify.

The drastic changes in the chemical weathering system on Earth led to a change in the productivity and the feeding cycle in the ocean, leaving oxygen from it at the end, and the elimination of various types of animal and plant groups at that time.

Finally, the research, published October 19 in Nature Geoscience, provides a warning about the global warming we are experiencing today that is 14 times higher than the annual cumulative rate of carbon dioxide emissions that accompanied the Great Mass Extinction, which was the largest biological disaster in the world. Earth history.