Re: Was There a Sixth Prehistoric Mass Extinction?

[Jeff Hecht <jeff@jeffhecht.com>]

The news is not the extinction per se, it’s the new evidence from David Bond 
(who has worked with Wignall) that the extinction was global rather than 
limited to the tropics or to China, as had been thought. Bond has fossils from 
Svalbard and elsewhere in the Arctic that he has dated to the Guadaulpian (or 
Capitanian or mid-Permian, depending on whose terminology is used) event, 
within some margin of error. 

Bond and Wignall give some detail in a GSA Special paper that reviews evidence 
of all large igneous provinces at times of mass extinctions  at 
doi:10.1130/2014.2505(02)
He has papers in submission giving more details on what he called the 
Capitanian extinction.   

Some of my New Scientist story is more speculative. One speculation is a 
possible link to terrestrial extinctions that might or might not be at the same 
interval (there are large uncertainties between terrestrial and marine dating 
from that period). Another is the incomplete recovery may have contributed to 
the end-Permian extinction. 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429922.300-missing-disaster-led-to-alltime-worst-extinction.html

One thing that is sort of the same old stuff is the need for more data and 
better dates. But that’s something we always need. 


On Oct 23, 2014, at 7:30 PM, Will Baird <anzhalyu@gmail.com> wrote:

> The Guadalupian mass extinction really isn't new...Its been around since at
> least Wignall's book in 1998.  Even earlier.  There are arguments over
> whether or not it was big or not.  blahblahblah.  usual stuff in the mass
> extinction studies.



Jeff Hecht, Correspondent, New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com
jeff@jeffhecht.com or hechtnews@gmail.com
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