End-Triassic calcification crisis and blooms of organic-walled 'disaster species' ...

• Main Authors: Schootbrugge, B. Van De, Tremolada, F., Rosenthal, Y., Bailey, T. R., Feist-Burkhardt, S., Brinkhuis, H., Pross, J., Kent, Dennis V., Falkowski, P. G.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Columbia University 2007
• Subjects: Paleoclimatology; Methane hydrate
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d8n58wz0; https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8N58WZ0

The Triassic–Jurassic (T–J) mass-extinction event is marked by isotope anomalies in organic (δ13Corg) and carbonate carbon (δ13Ccarb) reservoirs. These have been attributed to a (rapid) 4-fold rise in pCO2 as a result of massive flood basalt volcanism and/or methane hydrate dissociation. Here we examine the response of marine photosynthetic phytoplankton to the proposed perturbation in the carbon cycle. Our high-resolution micropalaeontological analysis of T–J boundary beds at St Audrie's Bay in Somerset, UK, provides evidence for a bio-calcification crisis that is characterized by (1) extinction and malformation in calcareous nannoplankton and (2) contemporaneous blooms of organic-walled, green algal 'disaster' species which comprise in one case > 70% of the total palynomorph fraction. Blooms of prasinophytes and acritarchs occur at the onset and in association with a prominent negative shift in δ13Corg values close to the first appearance of the Early Jurassic ammonite Psiloceras planorbis. Across the ...