“How CO2 Starvation & Plate Tectonics Caused the Greatest Mass Extinction, the Permian Great Dying”
The gradual sequestering of CO2 over millions of years gradually dropped CO2 to starvation levels that reduced photosynthesis, causing the “phytoplankton blackout” and Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse, wide spread ecosystem disruptions and a series of sequential minor extinctions resulting in “Dead Clades Walking” that culminated in end Permian extinctions.
A transcript is available at https://perhapsallnatural.blogspot.co…
Jim Steele is an ecologist and Director emeritus of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus, (whose research restored a critical watershed), author of Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to climate Skepticism, and proud member of the CO2 Coalition
CO2 enhances LIFE
LIFE emits CO2
Perfect symbiosis
Cyanobacteria, algae and plants use CO2 to make sugar via photosynthesis, emitting O2 in the process. Fungi and animals use the O2 for energy and emit CO2, while also consuming the photosynthezisers. It works.
Hmm. Yet to hear from Milo and his explanation of the causation mechanisms of volcanic eruptions causing extinctions, but then again I never expected he was capable.
But Milo is not alone. There are several researchers that suggest vulcanism has driven mass extinctions. Their logic is: eruptions cause large fluxes of CO2 which they blindly assume heats and acidifies the oceans and kills everything.
If we look at the 5 million-year Emeishan Traps eruption that happened during the Permian’s Capitanian extinctions, geologists estimate about 300,000 km3 of basalt was brought to the ocean floor. That averages out to about 60,000 km3 per million years. How deadly is that?
One way to get a handle on such an event is to compare it to Hawaii’s Big Island basalt flows.
Mauna Kea is about 1 million years old and has produced 850,000 km3 of basalt. That is a far greater rate than the Emeishan Traps that Milo frets about. Yet nothing close to an assumed great warming or mass extinction has been observed during that time. In fact, what has been observed during the last million years of the Pleistocene, is 10 cycles of massive glaciations with CO2 concentrations down around 250 ppm. Perhaps Milo believes that the Emeishan Traps caused local extinctions by glaciers plowing the land???
Furthermore, the Emeishan Traps happened deep in the ocean. So how much CO2 got vented to the atmosphere? Today’s oceans trap over 1000 ppm of CO2 at just 300 meter depths. That CO2 only affects euphotic zone biology or reaches the atmosphere during upwelling events. Upwelling events are typically associated with the oceans’ greatest productivity and biodiversity. Perhaps Milo can explain why he thinks all this is so deadly? Or maybe Milo just doesn’t think very critically.
Finally, the claims that the massive releases of CO2 from the Emeishan, or even the bigger Siberian Traps, cause rapid warming of the earth and fries marine life, is simply a bad scary narrative that has yet to be explained or proven.
The infrared of CO2 only penetrates a few microns into the ocean’s cool skin surface and then is immediately radiated back to space. That’s why many good scientists think vulcanism is just a coincidence with no global warming effect.
A video: the Science of Solar Ponds clearly demonstrates why it is solar energy and not CO2 infrared that heats the oceans. Watch at
I feel sorry for poor Milo. He has been brain-washed by so much unproven catastrophic climate narratives, and sadly fails to accept all the proven scientific dynamics that don’t support his vulcanism/extinction beliefs.
You still don’t get it. I’m not fixated on anything. Just the opposite. I want to look at everything that was going on around the times of mass extinctions.
As I said, you’re fixated on CO2. Volcanic eruptions release lots of gases besides CO2, and flood basalt eruption magma differs markedly from volcanic cone eruptions whether over hot spots like Hawaii or over subduction zones as on continental margins.
That the Emeishan eruptions were partly under shallow water doesn’t matter, except that unlike the Siberian Traps, they didn’t burn coal fields. They still released copious amounts of SO2.
Look how much SO2 a submarine eruption can release:
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/01/Sulphur_dioxide_from_Tonga_eruption_spreads_over_Australia
You claim to explain the end Permian Great Dying, then ignore what was happening then. At the same time you claim that the Capitanian extinction was a separate sixth mass event. So which is it?
Do you really think phytoplankton in the Chinese islands would not have been affected by flood basalt eruptions precisely there in the Middle Permian?
I haven’t been brainwashed. Au contraríe. I consider all the evidence.
I don’t think sulfur compounds alone account for the Great Dying, but there is compelling evidence that it contributed.
https://www.space.com/permian-extinction-microbes-hydrogen-sulfide.html#:~:text=During%20the%20Permian%20extinction%2C%20the,levels%20and%20low%20oxygen%20levels.
LOL Milo is desperately trying to re-brand his obnoxious trolling and divert the discussion to volcanism without ever addressing a single item in the article here and portray himself as the open minded scientist presenting “alternative views” who is being thwarted by mean old meme. Such transparent desperation just reveals his ignorance.
As one poster correctly observed, “When “alternative views” have NOTHING to do with the actual subject – those giving them are, at best, simply ignorant or stupid. At worst, they are deliberate trolls desperately trying to move the subject away from one that is inconvenient.”
So Milo now links to an article about a published paper on euxinia as a kill mechanism. The article clearly states, “scientists are still puzzled about how exactly the volcanic eruptions caused this mass extinction” …confirming my belief that vulcanism is at most a minor player.
The article also states, ““During the Permian extinction, the world’s oceans began experiencing what is known as euxinia, a phenomenon caused by a combination of high hydrogen sulfide levels and low oxygen levels.” So Milo is now desperately pushing to examine sulfur that released in volcanoes. But volcanic releases of sulphur do not cause euxinina.
Developing euxinia “all require reduced oxygenation” and certainly CO2 starvation and reduced photosynthesis reduce oxygen Euxinia develops because bacteria must strip oxygen away from sulphur compounds and produce hydrogen sulfide and hence euxinia. It has nothing to do with the Emeishan or Siberian Traps.
I suggest Milo read the underlying paper that media alluded to
Hülse (2021) End-Permian marine extinction due to
temperature-driven nutrient recycling and euxinia.
Curiously the paper admits “we do not address in this study the question of which nutrient actually limited primary production” However that is exactly what CO2 starvation is about and Milo is trying to divert attention from.
Instead the paper suggests high CO2 from vulcanism warmed the ocean which sped up the re-mineralization of organic matter which removed oxygen then causing euxinia as bacteria release Hydrogen Sulfide.
I alluded to this whole process describing the bacterial loop by addressing the question of which nutrient actually limited primary production. It is more involved but no time right now.
Clearly Milo knows nothing about euxinia or vulcanism or sulphur. MIlo is just desperate to divert attention from CO2 starvation and his transparent trolling
IOW, you can’t respond to my points, so yet again, as always, resort to ad hominem invective.
I’m pretty sure I know more about both the Capitanian and end Permian extinctions than you do, since your interest is only in countering alarmists’ CO2 scenarios, while mine is to try to figure out what really happened, which no one has satisfactorily done, least of all you..
Have you followed superplume research?
Here’s a good place to start, ie the effect of geomagnetism on the Capitanian cooling:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X08001834
Illawarra Reversal: The fingerprint of a superplume that triggered Pangean breakup and the end-Guadalupian (Permian) mass extinction.
The course work for a Master’s in ecology might not have equipped you with the earth science needed adequately to analyze the Permian extinctions.
If you hope to turn your post here into a publishable paper, you’ll have to consider the actual end Permian extinctions, not just the Capitanian, to pass peer review. I hope that helps.
IOW I educate you about the science of sulfur and euxinia, it is not what you want to believe, so you weirdly turn it into an ad hom and make yourself a victim. So weird!… LOL…
“How CO2 Starvation & Plate Tectonics Caused the Greatest Mass Extinction, the Permian Great Dying”
Well, that is an unusual one. The general explanation is the eruption of the Siberian Traps, with massive outgassing of CO2, and much else.
The “Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse” happened 50 million years earlier.
Here, from a 2021 paper is a detailed plot of CO2 levels at the time. About a million years before end Permian it stood at 500 ppm, which is hardly starvation. But then it rose rapidly towards end Permian.
Likewise no mention of the massive Central Atlantic Magmatic Province eruptions at the end Triassic mass extinction. Nor the Deccan Traps eruptions during the end Cretaceous mass extinction, granted mainly due to an asteroid impact in that case, rather than to massive volcanism alone.
LOL REALLY MILO?? Of course no mention of volcanism that happened millions of years after the Permian extinctions!
You brought it up the end Triassic and Cretaceous extinctions, but then said you weren’t going to discuss them. But they feature prominently in alarmist doom scenarios because, like the Permian, they’re associated with rising CO2. You dealt with the Ordovician and Devonian extinctions, 190 and 110 million years before the end Permian, since you can use them against alarmists.
Milo I smell a silly troll. The passing reference to the last 2 of the great extinctions that I said I would not address was simply because they came after the Permian extinctions which is the focus. But you want to make that an issue?? That’s just stupid.
And I started with the Ordivician extinctions because it marks beginning of the gradual loss of phytoplankton biodiversity and the decline in CO2 they depend on.
Nick, you need to follow All the s\Science. Or at the very least, read or watch the presentation. Otherwise you would saw the reference to Feulner (2017) Formation of most of our coal brought Earth close to global glaciation
They wrote “A recent analysis of a high-resolution record reveals large orbitally driven variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration between 150 and 700 ppm for the latest Carboniferous and very low values of 100 ± 80 ppm for the earliest Permian. “
You would have also at least addressed the claim that the Permian is the result of Dead Clades Walking. Lethal loss of biodiversity was happening throughout the Permian, especially the mass extinctions millions of years prior to the Serbian Traps. You really need to first read what you are attacking
So weird you link to a paper regards CO2 levels after all the Permian extinctions, when the presentation discusses all the evidence up to and during the Permian.
Without the Siberian Traps, the dead clades walking might have kept lurching and staggering into the Triassic.
You really need to understand all the dynamics of the Permian before blindly believing the Siberian Traps and rising CO2 caused the extinction.
I suggest you start with understanding the Permian’s Capitanian extinctions 7-10 million years before the end Permian and before the Siberian Traps. Climate was cool and CO2 low but researcher now consider the Capitanian as one of the 6 Great extinctions. Volcanism and the CO2 it releases was irrelevant!
I don’t think rising CO2 alone caused the end Permian extinctions, but neither do I believe the Siberian Traps are a mere coincidence. For that matter, the Capitanian extinction coincided with the Emeishan flood basalt eruption in China. There needn’t be a single cause to either event.
“So weird you link to a paper regards CO2 levels after all the Permian extinctions”
The paper is about the rise of CO2, with resulting hothouse conditions. It starts:
“The end-Permian mass extinction, the largest biological crisis in Earth history, is currently understood in the context of Siberian Traps volcanism introducing large quantities of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, culminating in the Early Triassic hothouse.“
They chart with fine resolution the rise of CO2, as well as the hothouse period. Here is the plot again with end Permian marked:
As I said Nick you are obsessed with blaming CO2 and warmer temperatures so you cherrypick your science accordingly. You totally ignore the low CO2 and colder temperatures that caused the late Permian extinctions ending in the Capitainian. You are being dishonest with such a narrow focus but keep beating a dead horse and referencing irrelevant higher Triassic CO2!
So explain to everyone how the Permian phytoplankton blackout did not drive the collapse of Permian food webs. You do understand that low CO2 means low photosynthesis means collapsed food chains dont you? That’s middle school science you should be able to grasp.
Or explain how Triassic CO2 accounts for the Paleozoic decline in Phytoplankton. That should be entertaining.
“That’s middle school science you should be able to grasp.”
JIm, no need to be so snooty. It is you who is out of step with min stream science here.
What you have not explained at all is why these periods of low CO2 should lead to a sudden major extinction forty million years later. There is nothing in your theory to explain that suddenness; standard theory has the very obvious eruption of the Siberian traps, producing among other things a very rapid rise in CO2, with corresponding warming and ocean acidification.
Ocean acidification? Really? You lose, no such thing.
“It is you who is out of step with min stream science here.”
Oh, that’s a low blow- he’s out of step with main stream science! Oh, bad Mr. Steele. 🙂
I get snooty when you keep ignoring the main argument of vanishing phytoplankton and instead you keep trying to focus on Triassic data. BTW One could also argue volcanic release of CO2 benefitted starving algae.
And your comeback is to make it a scientific popularity contest with “It is you who is out of step with min stream science here.” LOL
Did you know they give Nobel prizes to people who were out step with the popular assumptions of the times? That’s how sceince progresses.
Nick. Just because someone is ‘out of step’ with the main stream does not mean they are wrong. That is the whole point of web sites like this.
“with corresponding warming …” No physical evidence CO2 causes the climate to warm.
“… and ocean acidification.” if at all by nitric and sulfuric oxides. Not by CO2.
Yes, IMO the major changes in oceanic chemistry in the Middle and Late Permian were due to SO2 from flood basalt eruptions. First came the Emeishan in China during the Capitanian, about which Jim writes, then the massive Siberian Traps, which ignited coal beds, so some CO2 as well.
There is a reason he’s known as Nitpick Nick.
Except current middle school science has become exceptionally CO2/climate change obsessed. I mean the rock cycle is gone from the NGSS curriculum.
Kevin, good to see you here again.
Thank you, sir. I lurk here mostly, but have focussed writing mostly commentary for public meetings of various sorts — electric rate hearings lately. Always good to see you around too.
They are NOT teaching, practicing or applying science.
Most teachers in the states are unable to teach or apply science or mathematics.
Ability and knowledge have been stripped from kindergarten, grade school through high school teachers. Leaving them to spout nonsense instead of teach knowledge.
“culminating in the Early Triassic hothouse.”
A physically meaningless climate-model-based pseudo-explanation.
Jim, I did read your transcript. But many of the events you talk about happened many millions of years before end Permian (about 252 Ma). The period Feulner is writing about is about 40 Ma earlier:
LOL Nick. Did you really read (or understand) the presentation? You reply “But many of the events you talk about happened many millions of years before end Permian” Well duh!
The article is precisely about the dynamics leading up to the end Permian. You are clinging to the false notion that only the end Permian-Triassic events caused the extinctions. A very narrow and blinkered perspective, but what would be expected if you primary concern is blaming CO2 for extinctions.
Indeed I referenced Feulner and the early Permian CO2 because it explains the Permian’s Phytoplankton Blackout that drove the collapse of Permian food webs. Siberia Traps were just a coincidence at the very end of the Permian.
Was the CAMP a coincidence at the end Triassic mass extinction? How about the Emeishan Traps at the Capetanian mass extinction event in the Mid-Permian? That’s a lot of coincidences, given the Deccan Traps as well. The latter might well be just coincidental, but could well have contributed to the end Cretaceous mass extinction, at least on India.
Jim, your reply?
Peer reviewers will ask the same questions, should you try to publish.
The plot is detailed, the data is not. When I wrote my book I checked the quality of the distant past CO2 data, which nobody does. I used the biggest compilation available from Dana Royer. I was appalled. This is from Figure 9.5 in the book:
There can be millions of years with only one data point. Even when there are 10, imagine just one data point for the past 100,000 years. Then I thought, well, at least we have a period around 215-200 million years ago when we probably have a better knowledge of the CO2 levels.
It turns out it is the opposite. CO2 levels at that data hot spot are all over the place, from 0 ppm to 3500 ppm. Researchers just run loess smoothing through that data and pretend we know distant past CO2 levels. They even say things like the data supports that CO2 has been the main climate driver through the Phanerozoic.
It is all pure fiction. The reality is that we don’t have a clue what CO2 levels were in the distant past. And CO2 models don’t help because they disagree with each other.
A thorough critique of CO2 climate models can be found in:
Boucot, A.J. and Gray, J., 2001. A critique of Phanerozoic climatic models involving changes in the CO2 content of the atmosphere. Earth-Science Reviews, 56(1-4), pp.1-159.
And it is devastating.
Then I see skeptics and affirmationists arguing about past temperature data, which is many times better while accepting and using past CO2 data as if somewhat sanctified.
Past CO2 data doesn’t support anything.
“Past CO2 data doesn’t support anything.”
Isn’t that a kick in the head!
The inexact science of CO2 on display.
With such a large variance in the data, it suggests to me that the CO2 balance was either very unstable, and/or the proxies leave a lot to be desired.
There was a recent “Closer to Truth” TV program (actually a re-run) where Robert Laurence Kuhn was interviewing a mathematician and she made a remark that I thought was very important. She asserted that the variance in data was of greater importance than the mean.
The mean is an abstraction that doesn’t really exist. Although the variance depends on a calculated mean (central tendency of some data is how I think of it), it is closer to the actual data and gives a much better image of what we actually know than the mean does. Whatever ‘random variables’ may be, we are stuck with the data points and trying to interpret them and I think the scatter has much more information than a calculated mean.
“The reality is that we don’t have a clue what CO2 levels were in the distant past.”
Well, except that 4.5 billion years ago all the CO2 now locked up in carbonate was part of the atmosphere, contributing some 60-100 bars of pressure. We can be sure of that.
And apart from that, great comment! 🙂
“It is all pure fiction. The reality is that we don’t have a clue what CO2 levels were in the distant past.”
Well, I think you should address that to Jim. He’s the one saying it is all due to CO2 starvation.
But in fact the paper of Joachimski et al that I cited described their methods and resolution. They use isotope ratios in calcisols, from various places, and get fairly good agreement, supporting the claim that CO2 rose greatly during the end Permian event.
🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂
Jim is proposing a hypothesis for which the main evidence is paleontological, from the fossil record. Regarding CO2 levels, anything can be said, and a scientific hypothesis cannot be refuted nor supported by bad data.
Regarding Joachimski et al, every article has a methods section, and if the data does not support the claim the paper does not get published. Given the reality of ancient CO2 data, the only reason to trust some studies would be confirmation bias.
Nick,
You should know better than to describe a CO2 starvation ellect that can cause havoc through starvation if it lasts 1,000 years, on a graph that has fine X-axis intervals of 200,000 years.
Geoff S
Reminds me of someone using proxies with century and millennial resolutions and comparing them to modern records with yearly and even daily resolutions.
Geoff,
It is Jim who is saying that the event caused a sudden extinction 40 million years later.
I have not kept up with research in this area, but it seemed to me from work done around year 2000, and a quickreading of Chapter 11 in Michael Benton’s book (When Life Nearly Died) corroborated what I recalled, that these gasses were not enough to produce the requisite, and presumed, warming and thus required a methane release from hydrates. It could all be a “just so” story.
Ironically Chapter 11 starts with an admonition that historians should not interprete history through modern sensibilities, but then ends with our current CO2/warming hysteria carrying forward this particular explanation for the Permian extinction.
Something that is often missed is evidence that the Permian igneous event intruded sills below and into coal beds, with the evidence being graphite xenoliths in the intrusions. That would have resulted in toxic carbon monoxide being released, because of the limited underground oxygen, as well as volatile coal tars containing noxious gases such as benzene. Additionally, the pyrite/marcasite commonly found in coal would have produced various oxides of sulfur, which upon contact with water would have produced strong acids with the ability to actually acidify the oceans instead of just lowering the alkaline pH as is done by carbonic acid. There would probably also have been elevated emissions of mercury vapor along with the volcanic gas emissions of CO2, SO2, HCl, HF, and CH4.
In summary, cooking the coal would have created a Witches Brew that would have killed at least the more sensitive marine and terrestrial life forms. Upon their decomposition, they would have reduced the dissolved oxygen in the surface waters of the ocean, and produced more CO2. It appears to me that what was going during the End Permian was more complex than anyone here has so far acknowledged.
More interesting events to ponder. So much going on in this timeframe, and not well resolved.
Oh dear, the Magic Molecule does it all..
So we’re hit by a blizzard of coincidences, trivia, irrelevance, ExtremelyLikelys, Clearlys, Multiple, Minors, accusations of bias, and GarbageGraphics..
e.g. (1) The Red-Face / Green-Face Rubisco roundabout.
I’m sorry but ‘sugar’ is not the only product of photosynthesis – why is there no Oxygen coming off that loop.
Is it beyond the bounds of belief/possibility that The Plants, feeding 30% of all the sugar they make to soil bacteria as they do, is what seems to make the Rubisco Loop self destructive.
That has Got To Be the most fantastic claim ever = Plants Self Destruct in the presence of (what’s deemed to be Excess) Oxygen
e.g. (2) We see a graphic of CO₂ (left axis) vs Oxygen (right axis) and Time on the horizontal.
OK
But why is the CO₂ axis in tenths of one percent when the Oxygen goes in 5% increments – please tell – where did the Oxygen come from if plants didn’t make it
That is coincidence , it is not causation and is the wrong way round ayway
Only One Thing caused the whole shebang. Only one and its the same One Thing that’s causing what we observe around us now.
And we know that because the arrival of the Siberian Traps brought the extinction calamity to and end and renewed Life on Earth = right at the very end of the Permian Extinction
Soil Erosion caused it all and The Siberian Traps – brought new soil.
That’s it. Simplicity itself
The volcanism there sprayed.splattered/deluged the entire planet (and esp the ocean) in huge amounts of micro nutrients and fertiliser (No – NOT ammonium nitrate – it’s not = fertiliser)
Especially Magnesium and Sulphur for the land area and Iron for the Oceans
Plate Tectonics and Volcanism did not cause the extinctions – they actually caused a renaissance of life
The Madness of Crowds thus means we get 3,288 words of complete wrong, trivia, minutia, red herrings, off-topics and Cause/Effect reversal when, just like The Gettysburg – 200 words would have been understandable, readable and Perfect & Correct
Those 200 words would have implied that, to save ourselves from this madness, we need to replicate (in modest ways admittedly, not all at once) what happened when The Traps were created
Also The Deccan Traps – site of India’s Breadbasket
How does CO₂ explain that – and myriad other happy, healthy, well adjusted, chilled-out, verdant and fertile places all around this Earth = typically on the flanks of extinct, and not-so extinct volcanoes
OH DEAR, more longwinded nonsensical Peta rambling that in his own words are “complete wrong, trivia, minutia, red herrings, off-topics and Cause/Effect reversal”
You demonstrate total ignorance of the deleterious effects of photorespiration that has driven the evolution of carbon concentrating mechanisms for more efficient photosynthesis. But your ignorance does not prevent you from blathering irrelevantly about an illustration showing the key points of photorespiration and suggesting it is wrong because, for simplicity sake, it only mentions sugar as a product of the Calvin Cycle. But worse you show total ignorance regards photosynthesis in general suggesting oxygen should also be a product. For you education Peta, oxygen is not produced in the Calvin Cycle, so its production will not be part of a photorespiration illustration, but only oxygen consumption. Oxygen is produced by chlorophyll’s light reactions that split water with end products of ATP & NADPH. Rubisco is the entry point for CO2 into the Calvin Cycle or O2 for photorespiration.
Huh! I imagined C02 to be high during the carboniferous, so to make those coal beds, steaming jungles making lots of green trees and plants easily. How does mother nature make a 90 foot thick coal seam in the Powder River area? Okay, well Jim Steele taught me differently.
HOW? By sequestering CO2!
It is thought that CO2 WAS high at the beginning and ended 60 million years later as lush plant and ocean life consumed about 7/8 of it. Oxygen level is also thought to have been possibly 35%. Plant life was prolific, obviously from the 30 meter thick dead plant material that was compressed into 3 meter thick coal seams. In comparison, today we live in a relative forsaken desert almost devoid of plant life, a world almost dying due to lack of CO2.
I read Jim’s paper and did some quick refresh research, as the Permian extinction has been a research interest for years. Even wrote a draft essay that did not make the Final Cut for ebook Blowing Smoke. Some Jim supporting comments.
The Permian followed the Carboniferous; that is, it came after the massive coal sequestration of CO2 that lasted about 50 million years, starting with the evolution of big woody plants. Carboniferous is thought to have ended with the evolution of fungi capable of digesting cellulose and lignin, recycling rather than sequestering plant wood as what became coal.
Then, as now, the other main CO2 sequestration was marine phytoplankton formation of calcite/aragonite resulting in limestone (CaCO3) deposition.
What happened during the late Carboniferous and early Permian is that supercontinent Pangea formed. Translation, all land surface became one ‘continent’. That means the plate tectonic subduction/andesic volcanism that recycles marine formed limestone into atmospheric CO2 today was then at a minimum. So atmospheric CO2 simply got further depleted until marine phytoplankton died, as Jim notes. That is real low CO2, leading to ongoing Permian land and ocean extinctions from CO2 starvation.
The Siberian Traps basaltic eruptions (over about a million years) coincided with the end Permian. Massive SO2 release acidified the oceans, leading to a final ‘sudden’ marine extinction coup de gras.
The Traps eruption also ignited massive Siberian coal deposits (soot evidence is found in now dry Chinese lakebeds), restoring sufficient CO2 for Triassic life to recover as Pangea broke apart and restored the tectonic recycling of marine limestone.
The Permian extinction story is much more interesting and complicated than AGW CO2 alarmists would have you believe.
I am of the SO2 and ocean anoxia school. Also changes in ocean chemistry.
Pangaea didn’t start breaking up until the end of the Triassic, with rifting in the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province.
The Siberian eruptions continued for roughly two million years.
How much gas was released how fast, and how long did it stay in the atmosphere?
The Linus cartoon fits.
I haven’t checked this excellent site in a while. I haven’t posted in even longer.
So. Interesting article.
Then I read the discussion. Here are some of Mr. Steele’s replies to comments.
“I smell a silly troll”
“That’s just stupid”
“You really need to read what you are attacking. So weird ….”
“Obsessed … cherrypick ….. ignore ….. dishonest”
“That’s middle school science you should be able to grasp”
“Did you really read or understand”
“OH DEAR, more longwinded nonsensical Peta rambling”
And more, ad hominum, ad infinatum.
Nick Stokes called you “snooty”
I’d go with snotty”
As a Sea Level researcher and recent signatory with Clintel, I expect more from the authors here.
SOP for Jim.
He skipped that part of the scientific method in which you’re supposed to welcome alternative views, rather than dismissing questioners as Untermenschen not fit to ask, let alone to challenge the Great God Steele., sole arbiter of Truth.
ROTFLMAO Milo is that your “scientific rebuttal” to my arguments??? As I just responded to Gary about my thoughts about you, to suggest I ‘skipped the part of the scientific method”, now only cements my assessment of your inteligence. Do you always dismiss the authors of alternative hypotheses as a “Great God”????
When “alternative views” have NOTHING to do with the actual subject – those giving them are, at best, simply ignorant or stupid. At worst, they are deliberate trolls desperately trying to move the subject away from one that is inconvenient.
Jim is being NICE. Much nicer than I am when dealing with the idiots.
DEAR Gary Cooke,
I too hope for more enlightened discussion here and was gravely disappointed by several comments that were simply dishonest ridicule.
First, I thank you very much for calling my article interesting. Many geologist and atmospheric physicist on another website have praised it as a “Tour de Force” article.
Second, indeed I made some harsh criticisms, but I thought they were very accurate yet restrained. If you honestly “expect more” here, may I suggest you try to at the very least put my comments into context. Furthermore I am totally flummoxed as to why you didnt expect more from those whose irrelevant remarks illicited my stinging remarks.
For example, Milo attacked my “interesting” “tour de force” article on the loss of Permian phytoplankton and the dynamics leading up to the end-Permian extinctions commenting “no mention of volcanism” that happened millions of years after the Permian extinctions!”
Perhaps my vocabulary is very limited, but when someone criticizes you, or me, for not mentioning something that happened million of years after the topic of discussion, I must confess my first thought here was “Milo is really retarded” (which is an old school term now frowned upon for mentally challenged). So I hope you can at the very least give me credit for my incredible restraint by just calling his remark “just stupid” or that he “smelled like a troll”. Please advise how you would characterize such a ridiculous comments so I don’t disappoint your sensitivities in the future.
Likewise, Nick who obviously did not read or grasp my” interesting” “tour de force” article posted about a paper showing how CO2 rose at the end Permian through the Triassic and then tried to explain to me that my references to starving levels of CO2 was in the early Permian. But that was precisely what my article was arguing. \
Now, I know that Nick isn’t retarded, but it seemed totally incomprehensible that an” interesting” “tour de force” article about the collapse of Permian food webs due to a “phytoplankton blackout” , tropical rainforest collapse, deadly low CO2 that could lead to Permian extinctions, would then be criticized for not discussing the rise of CO2 in the Triassic. And Nick did this not once, but twice!
So again you should admire my constraint. Knowing Nick is not as retarded, I must confess my first thought was Nick was just being an …it begins with A and the last 3 lettters are …ole. So instead I reiterated what the topic was about stating “You do understand that low CO2 means low photosynthesis means collapsed food chains.” Then to bolster Nick’s confidence I added “That’s middle school science you should be able to grasp.”
Clearly a man like Gary Cooke who boasts of being a “sea level researcher” and “signatory with Clintel, would expect more from Nick and Milo. But amazingly you were just OK with their nonsense.
Hmmmmm
Jim, if you wish to address the end Permian extinctions, you have to address flood volcanism. You leave lineages as dead clades walking at the end of the Capitanian extinction event, 262 to 259 Ma, but hand wave away how they eventually did actually become extinct.
I’m OK with viewing the Capitanian as a separate extinction, but IMO it qualifies as a sixth Phanerozoic MEE only if the dead clades walking had gone extinct within it. They didn’t. They were knocked off by the big end Permian Great Dying, which fact you ignore.
You also ignore the Emeishan eruptions during the Capitanian, which at the very least complicate your thesis. You should look beyond CO2 to consider the other effects of flood volcanism, such as SO2. In the Late Permian, even the air on land was sulfurous. Oceans became anoxic and changed chemically.
Milo,
“if you wish to address the end Permian extinctions” that I discussed in this presentation, then YOU need to address all the evidence I presented about the loss of photosynthesis and its impact on global food chains.
However, instead, you persist in pushing your blind belief that large volcanic episodes are the cause of extinctions. You ignorantly suggest that correlation demonstrates causation, and you NEVER explain HOW a volcanic eruption caused extinctions and never mention how more CO2 would benefit starved algae.
I’ve been very busy today, but I promise I will shortly post a devastating rebuttal to your silly reference that the Emeishan Traps were a driver of the Capitanian mass extinctions, despite low CO2 and lower temperatures. LOL But you or not alone with such a lack of critical thinking!
That you keep posting & demanding ad nauseum, that volcanism is the driver of extinctions but totally ignore all the evidence in my presentation about the factors that caused phytoplankton blackouts and rainforest collapses, it may seem rude to Gary, but your diversions clearly seem like a troll tactic designed to switch the focus away from my arguments without ever addressing those dynamics..
Why have you never even addressed, never mind failed to refute, one iota of the arguments in this presentation????
It’s not a blind belief at all.
Yet anyone trying to figure out the MEEs must deal with the fact that the end Permian, Triassic and Cretaceous MEEs occurred during flood basalt eruptions.
And, again, so too did the Capitanian extinction. You can’t just ignore these geological facts.
Well said, Jim 🙂
You got their comments down in a nutshell.
Irrelevant attempts at distraction.
That is Nick’s “modus operandi”.
Mr. Steele,
Thank you for the measured response. I hope I have the time to conduct a more detailed review of your work. But I’ll make these brief comments now.:
1) As macromite points out, and I think we mostly agree, proxys for ocean and atmospheric chemistry and temperature are fraught with difficulties and biases. Even the last 10,000 years are difficult to pin down. Although that is largely due to bias of the scientific-technological elite.
My interest in past mass extinctions and rapid climate change is largely because they are demonstrably NOT MAN-MADE.
2) My bias, regarding the Permian extinction is that of a clay mineralogist and sedimentologist. Volcanos are not my thing. Any explaination of the Permian extinction should include an explaination for the subsequent Triassic Redbeds. They are a mix of iron oxide and altered volcanic ash and mark a significant departure in ocean chemistry. Perhaps I will find the path to that in a closer look at your work.
3) If your goal is to convince people of your thesis, calling them names won’t do it. It’s ok to think they are ignorant boobs, but if you tell them that, you’ve lost. I recall sitting at a GSA conference in the back of the room with Walt Alvarez, listening to his dad bloviate about how geologists, including his son, weren’t real scientists and palentologists were beneath his contempt. He would have found a lot more support in that room if he wasn’t calling half the audience idiots. Since I haven’t been here lately, I know nothing of the interpersonal issues. I do know that expressing anger, disgust or disdain does not strengthen your position.
Anyway, thanks again for the interesting read. If I find some time and can dig further, I will let you know if I see anything that might benefit from my input.
Gary,
Of course calling some one names will never convince them of the science presented here. Convincing an ignorant troll is useless and never my intent.
People registering sincere questions and rebuttals are hoped for, knowing that a sincere debate is what brings us closer to the truth. I was foremost attacking dishonest trolling that spams and disrupts any meaningful debate. Furthermore some stinging remarks such as that to Peta were simply mimicking a worthless personal attack he initiated. If you are for just a short while you will see what an arrogant insulting blowhard Peta is.
I think if you truly want to help promote sincere scientific debate, you would have commented on the article and moved the discussion forward. Instead you chose to reprimand me for my comments you took out of context. I expect more from a clay mineralogist and sedimentologist.
Ok. I have read the entire text more closely. I find much food for thought. But the lack of references hinders the reader from fully understanding the source of your information.
I have the greatest respect for Bob Berner, the source of one of your CO2 curves. But my knowledge of palentology, especially the “phytoplankton blackout” is limited to what little the petroleum geologists would have known, 40 years ago.
Do you have a bibliography? References, especially to the source of the figures would be very helpful.
I’m assuming you read the transcript but didnt watch the video. Video slides had most of the references but they failed to sho in the transcript. So here are a few references to start. If there are other specific topics please ask
1. Barnes (2021) Dead clades walking are a pervasive macro-evolutionary pattern
2. Riebesell (1993) Carbon dioxide limitation of marine phytoplankton growth rates
3. Isozaki (2019) End-Paleozoic Mass Extinction: Hierarchy of Causes and a New Cosmoclimatological Perspective for the Largest Crisis
Excerpt: “This indicates an abrupt and large flux of isotopically light
carbon into world oceans, likely suggesting a collapse of primary productivity on a
global scale, in other words, a significant malfunction of the global food web. On
the other hand, a unique positive excursion of the carbon isotope ratio of carbonates
of up to +7‰ (the Kamura event) was detected in the Capitanian, which was followed
by a sharp negative drop of ca. 5‰ immediately below the G-LB horizon (red
horizontal line in Fig. 18.4; Wang et al. 2004; Isozaki et al. 2007, 2011).”
4. Strother (2008) A speculative review of factors controlling the evolution of phytoplankton during Paleozoic time
Excerpt: Throughout their evolutionary history, cyanobacteria and the algae have shown a progressive acquisition of carbon concentration mechanisms (CCMs) that are required for inorganic carbon (Ci) uptake by their anabolic physiology. Paleozoic phytoplankton lacking these CCMs could have been growth-limited by Ci uptake. Given the possibility of a lack of such CCMs during the relatively high levels of CO2 during the Lower Paleozoic, it seems possible that the acritarch decline was a combination of extinction due to inefficient Ci assimilation plus loss of cyst formation as a principal mechanism for survival following a large-scale shift to heterotrophic nutrition within multiple lineages.
5. Kroeck (2022) A review of Paleozoic phytoplankton biodiversity: Driver for major evolutionary events?
Excerpt: Our results highlight five major temporal trends in phyto-plankton diversity variation: (i) an initial plateau of moderate richness during the early and middle Cambrian, followed by (ii) a sharp increase from the late Cambrian to the Middle Ordovician, which records the highest Paleozoic diversity of organic-walled phytoplankton (OWP); then, (iii) a protracted decrease during the Late Ordovician to Middle Devonian; (iv) a slight peak in diversity during the Late Devonian, before (v) falling to the lowest richness recorded during the Carboniferous and Permian.
6. The Late Palaeozoic phytoplankton blackout — Artefact or evidence of global change?_Riegel_2008
Excerpt: The fossil record of the Palaeozoic documents one of the most dramatic changes in Phanerozoic marine primary production, although causes and effects of these changes have been the subject of rather controversial discussions. During the early Palaeozoic the marine phytoplankton experienced an enormous radiation and diversification of taxa especially among acritarchs, which was punctuated by a few extinction events possibly associated with climate changes. Phytoplankton diversity wadrastically reduced at the Devonian/Carboniferous boundary, a phenomenon here designated as the “Phytoplankton Blackout”.
7. Gerhart & Ward (2008) Plant responses to low [CO2] of the past
8. Flamholz (2022) Trajectories for the evolution of bacterial CO2-Concentrating Mechanisms (CCM)
Excerpt: Cyanobacteria rely on CO2-concentrating mechanisms (CCMs) to grow in today’s atmosphere (0.04% CO2). These complex physiological adaptations require ≈15 genes to produce two types of protein complexes: inorganic carbon (Ci) transporters and 100+ nm carboxysome compartments that encapsulate rubisco with a carbonic anhydrase (CA) enzyme. Mutations disrupting any of these genes prohibit growth in ambient air.
9. Azam (1983)The ecological role of water-column microbes in the sea.
Excerpt: Recently developed techniques for estimating bacterial biom!lSS and productivity indicate that bacterial biomass In the sea Is related to phytoplankton (‘Oncentration and that bacteria utilise 10 to 50 % of celbon fixed by photosynthesis. Evidence Is presented to suggest that numbers of free bacteria are controlled by nenoplanktonic heterotrophic flagellates which are ubiquitous in the merine water (‘Olumn. The flagelletes in tum are preyed upon by microzoopla nkton. Heterotrophic flagellates and microzooplankton (‘Over the same size range as the phytoplankton, thus providing the means for returning some energy from the ‘microbiel loop’ to the conventional planktonic food chain.
10. The double mass extinction revisited: reassessing the severity, selectivity, and
causes of the end-Guadalupian biotic crisis (Late Permian) Clapham (2009)
Excerpt: The end-Guadalupian extinction, at the end of the Middle Permian, is thought to have
been one of the largest biotic crises in the Phanerozoic. Previous estimates suggest that the crisis eliminated 58% of marine invertebrate genera during the Capitanian stage and that its selectivity helped the Modern evolutionary fauna become more diverse than the Paleozoic fauna before the end-Permian mass extinction. However, a new sampling-standardized analysis of Permian diversity trends, based on 53731 marine invertebrate fossil occurrences from 9790 collections, indicates that the end-Guadalupian ‘‘extinction’’ was actually a prolonged but gradual decrease in diversity from the Wordian to the end of the Permian.
11. Dunne (2018) Diversity change during the rise of tetrapods and the impact of the ‘Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse
excerpt: The Carboniferous and early Permian were critical intervals in the diversification
of early four-limbed vertebrates (tetrapods), yet the major patterns of diversity and biogeography during this time remain unresolved. Previous estimates suggest that global tetrapod diversity rose continuously across this interval and that habitat fragmentation following the ‘Carboniferous rainforest collapse’ (CRC) drove increased endemism among communities.
12. Feulner (2017)Formation of most of our coal brought Earth close to global glaciation
Excerpt: A recent analysis of a high-resolution record reveals large orbitally driven variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration between 150 and 700 ppm for the latest Carboniferous
and very low values of 100 +/- 80 ppm for the earliest Permian.
Thanks. Plenty for me to digest.
No, I have an audio feed going all the time, so I don’t watch videos. Particularly not YouTube videos, I’ve discovered years ago that I am two clicks away from soft porn if I watch YouTube videos.
Turn about is fair play, Gary.
Frank, what turnabout? Who among those pointing out the problems with Jim’s thesis ever engaged in ad hominem vitriol before he started it, and who among them ever descended to calling names?
Milo: “the Great God Steele., sole arbiter of Truth.”
Point offered by Writing Observer: “When “alternative views” have NOTHING to do with the actual subject – those giving them are, at best, simply ignorant or stupid. At worst, they are deliberate trolls desperately trying to move the subject away from one that is inconvenient.
Jim is being NICE. Much nicer than I am when dealing with the idiots.”
Jim Steele note: “Now, I know that Nick isn’t retarded, but it seemed totally incomprehensible that an” interesting” “tour de force” article about the collapse of Permian food webs due to a “phytoplankton blackout” , tropical rainforest collapse, deadly low CO2 that could lead to Permian extinctions, would then be criticized for not discussing the rise of CO2 in the Triassic. And Nick did this not once, but twice!”
(my underline throughout)
This reply to you shows Jim’s restraint in the face of insistent misdirection. Just to note, pointing out ignorance is not an ad hominem.
Doesn’t show.
What doesn’t show?
Jim Steele has provided this illumination: the release of CO2 by human burning of fossil fuels is the best thing to happen to terrestrial life, in 25 million years.
That message and Jim’s essay should be pushed far and wide and at every opportunity.
ABSOLUTELY !
CO2, and its counterpart, O2, are the life gases of the planet,..
and CO2 is currently at rather low atmospheric levels.
I refer to atmospheric CO2 as “plant food”. It drives Alarmists up the wall!!
I haven’t paid any recent attention to the End Permian Extinctions, but even years ago when I was interested, there was quite a bit of data supporting gradually increasing extinction with several major mass extinction events. Then along came the Cretaceous-ending asteroid and everyone seemed to be looking for a single deus ex machina for each and every Mass Extinction. Then the CO2 religion poisoned everything.
So, thanks to Jim for rekindling my interest and exposing me to the CO2 depletion hypothesis. I’ll need to catch up on the literature before I decide how strong the hypothesis may be. You can’t argue with CO2 starvation, biomass production must decline and extinctions must result, but I’ve always been less than overwhelmed with the reconstructions of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
From a geological standpoint, the claims to past CO₂ atmospheric levels have always depended upon extremely limited extremely intermittent presumptuous atmospheric CO₂ data points coupled with confirmation bias models.
One of the things that occurred to me is that life is well suited and evolved to massive volcanic eruptions. If you look at what the LIP Commission proposes, there are few times in geologic history when there is not a LIP underway, yet life continues. That being said, perhaps it is LIP in conjunction with something else, impact, close supernovae,GRB, etc, that overloads the system, triggering a mass extinction. Just as interesting is a time with an ongoing LIP (Afar) and a series of impact events (Chesapeake / Popogai / Toms Canyon) at the end of the Eocene that didn’t trigger a mass extinction. Why not? There was a brief push for a large impact crater in the vicinity of Oz in connection with the Permian that died just as quickly as it arose. All in all, a fascinating detective story. Cheers –