There have been several mass extinctions in the history of Earth with adverse consequences for the environment. Researchers from the University of Zurich have now uncovered another disaster that took place around 250 million years ago and completely changed the prevalent vegetation during the Lower Triassic.
There have been several mass extinctions in the history of Earth. One of the largest known disasters occurred around 252 million years ago at the boundary between the Permian and the Triassic. Almost all sea-dwelling species and two thirds of all reptiles and amphibians died out. Although there were also brief declines in diversity in the plant world, they recovered in the space of a few thousand years, which meant that similar conditions to before prevailed again.
Coprolites of marine vertebrate predators from the Lower Triassic of southern Poland
Authors:
Brachaniec et al
Abstract:
Numerous coprolites are described for the first time herein from the Lower Triassic (Olenekian) shallow marine sedimentary rocks in southern Poland. X-ray Diffraction and geochemical analyses show that they are preserved as calcium phosphate with small admixtures of quartz and calcite. Additionally, SEM and thin section studies revealed that they contain highly fragmented faunal remains (crinoids, molluscs and vertebrates). The size, shape, geochemistry, biostratigraphic distribution and co-occurrence with vertebrate skeletal remains imply that the coprolites at hand were likely produced by nothosaurids, the durophagous sauropterygian reptiles and actinopterygian (ray-finned) fish. The large number of recorded coprolites implies that durophagous predation has been intense during the Early Triassic and suggests that the so-called Mesozoic Marine Revolution probably started soon after the end-Permian extinction. Furthermore, discovery of sinusoidal trails attributable to nematodes in some coprolites implies that the intestinal parasitic associations with these predators had already evolved by at least the Early Triassic.
