Searching the Transantarctic Mountains for Late Permian Impact Evidence

Details Searching the Transantarctic Mountains for Late Permian Impact Evidence Searching the Transantarctic Mountains for Late Permian Impact Evidence

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p51a1182w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P51A-1182

Mathematics

Logic

5420 Impact Phenomena, Cratering (6022, 8136), 5754 Polar Regions, 6240 Meteorites And Tektites (1028, 3662)

Scientific paper

Several studies have proposed a large meteorite impact in Gondwana for the source of the greatest known extinction of life near the end of the Permian. However, remarkably few geological sections are complete enough to document events leading up to and across the extinction. Thus, the complete P-Tr terrestrial sections in the Beardmore Glacier region of the Transantarctic Mountains are critical to improving our understanding of this extinction event. Detailed stratigraphic studies of isolated Asian sections suggest that the P-Tr extinction involved two distinct events (e.g., Isozaki, et al., 2004). The Guadalupian-Lopingian extinction occurred first at roughly 260 Ma where up to 58% of marine genera disappeared (Stanley and Yang, 1994). About 5-10 million years later, the main extinction followed with the disappearance of up to 90% of marine life and about 75% of the terrestrial vertebrates, and plant life reduced mostly to the fungal stage. Thus, the search for meteorite evidence should consider the older rocks from near the beginning of the Guadalupian-Lopingian event (~eq260 Ma) and not simply focus on the younger stratigraphy of the maximum extinction (~eq250 Ma). Impact ejecta may masquerade as mudstone or tuff units so that available sections that span both extinction events need to be analyzed stratigraphically and chemically for shocked minerals, spherules and other signatures of impact. We review the P-Tr sections of the Transantarctic Mountains and related rock specimens maintained by the Antarctic Rock Repository at the Byrd Polar Research Center for hosting evidence of meteorite impact.

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