Was There a Guadelupean Mass Extinction?

CAPITANIAN (MIDDLE PERMIAN) MASS EXTINCTION AND RECOVERY IN WESTERN TETHYS: A FOSSIL, FACIES, AND δ13C STUDY FROM HUNGARY AND HYDRA ISLAND (GREECE)


Authors:

1. PAUL B. WIGNALL (a,*)
2. DAVID P. G. BOND (a)
3. JÁNOS HAAS (b)
4. WEI WANG (c)
5. HAISHUI JIANG (d)
6. XULONG LAI (d)
7. DEMIR ALTINER (e)
8. STÉPHANIE VÉDRINE (f)
9. KINGA HIPS (b)
10. NORBERT ZAJZON (g)
11. YADONG SUN (d)
12. ROBERT J. NEWTON (a)


Affiliations:

a. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom

b. Geological Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

c. Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, People's Republic of China

d. Key Laboratory of Geobiology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China

e.  Marine Micropalaeontology Research Unit, Department of Geological Engineering, Middle East Technical University, TR-06531 Ankara, Turkey

f.  7 rue Albert 1er, 45000 Orléans, France

g.  Department of Mineralogy and Petrology, University of Miskolc, Miskolc, Hungary

*. Corresponding author, Email: p.wignall@see.leeds.ac.uk


Abstract:

The Capitanian (middle Permian) extinction and recovery event is examined in carbonate platform settings from western Tethys (Hungary and Hydra, Greece). The age model for these sections is poorly resolved and we have constructed a δ13C chemostratigraphic correlation scheme, supported by conodont and foraminifer data, which attempts correlation with the well-dated events in China. This reveals the timing of events was similar in all Tethyan regions: extinction losses in the middle of the Capitanian produced late Capitanian assemblages in Hungary and Hydra with a distinctive late Permian character (for example, they lack large fusulinaceans). There is no evidence for an extinction event at the end of the Guadalupian (Capitanian) suggesting that previous claims for an end-Guadalupian mass extinction are based on poorly dated records of a mid-Capitanian event. Base level was stable through much of the middle–late Permian transition with the exception of a major regression within the Capitanian Stage. The subsequent transgression established widespread shallow-water carbonate deposition, such as the Episkopi Formation in Hydra and the Nagyvisnyó Limestone Formation in Hungary.

Missed this one a while back.  Timing is damned important here for this sort of thing.  The Guadalupean was a smaller mass extinction but an important one: the dinocephalians probably bit it then.