Some 252 million years ago, nearly all live on Earth vanished. The fossil record suggests some 96 percent of all marine life disappeared, and scientists suspect the magnitude of losses on land was similar.
But until now, scientists weren’t sure what exactly caused the massive Permian Period extinction, an event known as the Great Dying.
Researchers knew a series of volcanic eruptions set off a devastating chain of events, including deadly and disruptive climatic and environmental changes, but scientists couldn’t agree on a smoking gun.
Was it the sudden rise in ocean acidity? Did sulphur and other toxic metals poison the seas? Or did sudden rises in ocean temperatures wipe out almost all marine life?
New models designed by scientists at the University of Washington and Stanford University suggest a rapid rise in ocean temperatures was to blame. According to the complex simulations, the warming event accelerated the metabolism of ocean species at the same time that oxygen levels dwindled. The planet’s marine animals quickly ran out of oxygen — asphyxiation on a massive scale.
Researchers designed models both to predict the impacts of massive volcanic eruptions on ocean temperatures and to simulate the impacts on marine animals.