Early Jurassic environmental changes and extinctions

A seminar series hosted by the Earth Surface Science Institute in the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds.

ESSI - University of Leeds

Rowan-Clare Martindale - University of Texas at Austin

<p>This week we are welcoming Rowan Martindale (virtually) to Leeds! Rowan is primarily interested in marine paleoecology and the geobiology of carbon cycle perturbation events (e.g. mass extinctions, ocean anoxic events, and ocean acidification events in deep time). Their research also includes carbonate sedimentology and the paleontology/paleobiology of reef builders (e.g corals and sponges). </p><p>There have been numerous significant extinctions and global biogeochemical perturbations throughout the history of life. My research seeks to understand how these carbon-cycle perturbation events lead to environmental change and biotic collapse. Most research on these events has focused on the five largest biotic crises of the Phanerozoic, the “Big 5”. Nevertheless, research on mass extinctions that are less severe has yielded important information about biotic turnover, collapse of different paleocommunities, and recovery from severe paleoenvironmental perturbations. Collaborative research in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco on the Pliensbachian/Toarcian extinction and subsequent Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (Early Jurassic) reveals that this interval of time was particularly catastrophic for corals and reef ecosystems. Here, in these shallow mixed carbonate-clastic marine environments, there is no record of anoxia and so extinction drivers are likely heat, acidity, and enhanced weathering. Recent work shows that the coral extinction across both events is at the level of a “Big 5” extinction and the loss of corals is paralleled by the loss of lithiotid bivalves at the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event. The devastation during the late Pliensbachian and early Toarcian biotic crisis, one of the five largest reef collapses (by volume) of the Phanerozoic, suggests that this interval should be considered a key period in the evolutionary dynamics of scleractinian corals and reef ecosystems more broadly. Despite these extinctions, coral reefs recover relatively rapidly in Morocco and so these data on coral and reef survival and recovery during the Early Jurassic event are particularly pertinent for questions about present day ecosystem collapse and conservation of coral habitats. Our continuing work in the region seeks to link sedimentological and geochemical data about the paleoenvironment with extinction dynamics in both reef and level bottom environments to more thoroughly understand this understudied interval of time.</p>

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Early Jurassic environmental changes and extinctions

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