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More than one event in the late Triassic mass extinction

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Abstract

The recent hypothesis that mass extinctions are discrete phenomena that have occurred with great regularity during the history of life1,2 is testable in several ways. Two essential elements of the hypothesis are (1) that each extinction event represents a significant departure from normal, or ‘background’, rates of extinction, and (2) that such mass extinction events are spaced equally in time. The analyses of the cyclicity of mass extinctions so far have concentrated on the past 250 Myr, with the first event occuring at the Permian–Triassic boundary, 245 Myr ago1–5. The second event followed 26–33 Myr later1–6, in the late Triassic. Here I present a detailed analysis of the fossil record of marine and non-marine life during the late Triassic which suggests that there were at least two phases of mass extinction during that time, separated by 12–17 Myr.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK

    Michael J. Benton

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Benton, M. More than one event in the late Triassic mass extinction. Nature 321, 857–861 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1038/321857a0

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