doi: 10.1073/pnas.2120441119. Epub 2022 Sep 12.
Continental flood basalts drive Phanerozoic extinctions
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- PMID:36095185
- PMCID: PMC9499591
- DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2120441119
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Continental flood basalts drive Phanerozoic extinctions
Theodore Green et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A..
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Abstract
Refinements of the geological timescale driven by the increasing precision and accuracy of radiometric dating have revealed an apparent correlation between large igneous provinces (LIPs) and intervals of Phanerozoic faunal turnover that has been much discussed at a qualitative level. However, the extent to which such correlations are likely to occur by chance has yet to be quantitatively tested, and other kill mechanisms have been suggested for many mass extinctions. Here, we show that the degree of temporal correlation between continental LIPs and faunal turnover in the Phanerozoic is unlikely to occur by chance, suggesting a causal relationship linking extinctions and continental flood basalts. The relationship is stronger for LIPs with higher estimated eruptive rates and for stage boundaries with higher extinction magnitudes. This suggests LIP magma degassing as a primary kill mechanism for mass extinctions and other intervals of faunal turnover, which may be related to [Formula: see text], Cl, and F release. Our results suggest continental LIPs as a major, direct driver of extinctions throughout the Phanerozoic.
Keywords: carbon cycle; mass extinctions; paleontology; volcanology.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare no competing interest.
Figures
Relationship between observed and expected coincidence products. The observed coincidence products between all Phanerozoic stage boundaries and all LIPs (A), along with the corresponding stochastic distribution (which would result if timescale boundaries were spread randomly throughout the Phanerozoic following a uniform distribution), on a logarithmicy scale. The probability that a uniform distribution has a higher coincidence product () than observed is given byP. Note that the vertical log scale visually distorts the shaded regions compared to the reportedP values.B shows the results for LIPs and stage boundaries when the Siberian Traps, the largest LIP correlated with a severe extinction, is excluded.C shows the coincidence products for all LIPs and the five Phanerozoic mass-extinction boundaries.D shows the results for LIPs and stage boundaries when all of the LIPs temporally correlated with mass extinctions (the Deccan Traps, CAMP, Siberian Traps, Viluy Province, and Kola-Dnieper Province) are not considered. Even without these large, well-correlated events inB andD, there is still a statistically significant relationship between LIPs and Phanerozoic extinctions. Below are the observed coincidence products and stochastic distributions of coincidence products for impact events.E shows the results for all impacts with diameters20 km and all stage boundaries, whileF excludes the Chicxulub impactor from consideration. Likewise,G shows the results for all impacts with diameters40 km and all stage boundaries, whileH excludes the Chicxulub. The coincidences between impact events and Phanerozoic extinction are statistically significant only when the Chicxulub impactor is included, indicating that its precise coincidence with the K-Pg mass extinction is primarily responsible for the observed relationship between impacts and extinctions. Since the LIP-extinction coincidence is robust to similar exclusions, this supports a significant temporal relationship between LIPs and faunal turnover over the Phanerozoic.
Greater normalized total coincidence products for larger extinctions and faster bulk eruptive rates. Observed LIP-extinction coincidence products for subsets of the record with varying of extinction severities and eruptive rates, normalized by the maximum possible coincidence product for a subset of that size. The subsets include all LIPs with bulk eruptive rates greater than or equal to the stated bulk eruption rate and all stages with extinction magnitudes greater than or equal to the stated extinction magnitude. For subsets of the record that include only the most severe extinctions and LIPs with the greatest eruptive rates, the observed coincidence products approach the maximum possible values.SI Appendix, Fig. S3 shows the same trend when the subsets are nonoverlapping.
Carbon-cycle perturbations from continental LIPs relative to the Rothman threshold. The dimensionless carbon-cycle mass perturbation, plotted as a function of the dimensionless timescale of CFB eruption, adapting the nondimensionalizations from Rothman’s (37) analysis of C-isotope excursions to flood basalt eruptions. Log scale. The leftmost diagonal (identity) line represents the critical rate threshold representing the maximum possible normalized flux perturbation in a mass-conserving carbon cycle with no anomalous sinks or sources (37). The other diagonal lines apply that same critical threshold to events with intermittent CO2 degassing, occurring over 10%, 1%, or 0.1% of the total duration. CFB provinces that are associated with the highest extinction magnitudes fall closest to the continuous degassing (100%) critical rate threshold and plot above the 10% critical rate threshold. Horizontal error bars reflect 1σ age and uncertainties with the exception of the lower uncertainty on the Emeishan Province, which assumes a minimumτenv of 10,000 y because the small nominal duration of that province causes its start and end age uncertainties to overlap. The 0.5 wt.% CO2 is taken as a reasonable value after ref. , but vertical error bars show the range of potential dimensionless CO2 masses that result from varying the estimated wt.% CO2 in the erupted material from 0.2 to 0.5 (39) (Materials and Methods).
CFB bulk eruptive rates correlate strongly with extinction severity. Observed correlation between CFBs and extinction magnitudes results in a logistic regression (; black) of the form with parameters (1 SE), (1 SE), and (1 SE). For the most precisely dated CFBs (1; red), the observed correlation with extinction magnitude can be approximated by a regression line (; red) with a slope of 21.02 ± 2.02) (1 SE;t = 10.40;P = 0.0001) and an intercept of 4.73 ± 3.68% (1 SE;t = 1.29;P = 0.2555). The intercepts for both regressions are nonzero, potentially because a background extinction rate was not subtracted from the extinction magnitudes from Muscente et al. (13) used here. Moderately well-dated CFBs (1; purple) broadly fall along the same linear trend: 1, Parana-Etendeka; 2, North Atlantic Igneous Province; 3, Tarim; 4, Qiangtang; 5, Jutland (Skagerrak); and 6, Chon Aike. All other less precisely dated flood basalts are shown in blue. To avoid plotting duplicate correlations for less precisely dated CFBs, boundaries that are correlated with multiple eruptions are shown only with the highest eruptive rate CFB, and CFBs that overlap multiple boundaries are plotted only with the highest extinction magnitude stage. Horizontal error bars reflect 1σ age uncertainties only, not those related to volume. The Emeishan, Parana-Etendeka, and Jutland (Skagerrak) provinces have sufficiently large duration uncertainties to produce negative eruption rates, so those 1σ errors are, instead, set equal to the bulk eruptive rate. Vertical error bars show the range from minimum to maximum extinction magnitude at a given boundary, as calculated by Muscente et al. (13). Exact values are given inSI Appendix, Table S5 .
Comment in
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