New Papers About Permian Mass Extinctions

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 28 13:25:21 EST 2006

Dear Friends,

Two recent papers, which are coauthored by Dr. Greg J.
Retallack and discuss the Permian mass extinction, have
been recently published.

They are:

Retallack, G.J. and Krull, E.S. 2006. Carbon isotopic evidence
for terminal-Permian methane outbursts and their role in
extinctions of animals, plants, coral reefs and peat swamps.
In Greb, S. and DiMichele, W.A., Editors, Wetlands through
time. Special Paper of the Geological Society of America.
vol 399, p 249-268.

The 3 MB version of the above paper can be downloaded from:

http://www.uoregon.edu/~gregr/Papers/Ragnarok2.pdf

This paper provides a very detailed discussion of what he and
his coauthors argued caused the Permian mass extinction.

Also, there is:

Retallack, G.J., Greaver, T., Jahren, A.H., Smith, R.M.H.,
Sheldon, N.D., and Metzger, C.A., 2006, Middle-Late
Permian mass extinction on land. Geological Society of
America Bulletin. vol. 118, p. 1398–1411.

The 1.5 MB version of the above paper can be downloaded from:

http://www.uoregon.edu/~gregr/Papers/Mid-Late%20Permian%20extinction.pdf

The above Geological Society of America Bulletin paper is
interesting because, they recognize two distinct and separate
geologically abrupt mass extinctions on land. One of these
occurs at the end of the Middle Permian (Guadalupian) at
260.4 Ma and a later one occurring with the Permian Period
at 251 Ma. Both of these correspond to previously recognized
marine mass extinctions. He is quite skeptical of the Permian
mass extinctions as having been related to any asteroid or
comet impact.

Other papers coauthored by Greg J. Retallack, which are
related to the Permian extinction can be found at:

http://www.uoregon.edu/~gregr/publications.html

They include:

Retallack, G.J., Jahren, A.H., Sheldon, N.D., Chakrabarti, R.,
Metzger, C.A., and Smith, R.M.H., 2005. Permian-Triassic
boundary in Antarctica. Antarctic Science 17, 241-258.

The PDF file for this paper can be found at:

http://www.uoregon.edu/~gregr/Papers/PTAntarctica.pdf

Yours,

Paul