PERMIAN EXTINCTION
The end of the Permian period marks the greatest extinction event of the last half a billion years, up to 90% of terrestrial and oceanic organisms perished, and still to this day no one quite understands why. The idea of a mass extinction around 250 million years ago arose from the rocks. Rock layers from the Permian to Triassic were plentiful of life up until the boundary between the two eras, where fossil evidence tapers off to virtually nothing. Small invertebrates were present, as well as a few creatures known as “crisis specialists”, that make no other appearance in the fossil record except during the extinction, these organisms did not last long.
The exact cause of the Permian extinction is still shrouded in mystery, however one thing is certain, for an extinction as devastating as the Permian it was not a single event but multiple events that triggered the end of the Palaeozoic era. At the time of the extinction, Earth was one big land mass, Pangea. It was discovered that around the time of the extinction, the infamous Siberian Traps had erupted, this eruption and the extinction occurring side by side is not seen as a coincidence. The Siberian Traps erupted in spectacular fashion, pouring magma, ash and poisonous gases across an area the size of Europe. This is arguably one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the Earth’s history and would have had a devastating impact on life in close range, photosynthesising plants the world over and possibly even set the course for global climate change. However the Siberian Traps were not a simple row of conical volcanoes, but more frighteningly lava would have exploded out from fissures, or cracks in the ground. The ground would have literally split down the middle as molten rock from the Earth spewed out, the Permian extinction was a vision of hell. Evidence in the rocks show that the late Permian had extreme climates, vast deserts, acidic oceans and few habitable areas. Conditions only worsened until around 90% of life on Earth had vanished. As the Permian era came to a violent end, animals such as the trilobites, Gorgonops, Lystrosaurs and Scutosaurs disappeared into the Earth’s history.
Despite the immense impact of the Permian extinction on life on Earth, it did slowly recover. Similar to how forest fires cleanse the landscape for a new start, an extinction paves the way for new walks of life. Marine animals recovered first, where common Permian creatures had been obliterated, not so common creatures of the time such as Bivalves rapidly grew in numbers. Life on land slowly but surely recovered soon after that, new plants rose from the ashes and small vertebrates began to take back the land, within that tiny group of survivors would be the ancestors to the dinosaurs, who would soon take over the world during one of the most fascinating periods of the Earth’s history.
