High-precision temporal calibration of Late Permian vertebrate biostratigraphy; U-Pb zircon constraints from the Karoo Supergroup, South Africa

Therapsid and other tetrapod fossils from the South African Karoo Supergroup provide the most detailed and best studied terrestrial vertebrate record of the Middle and Late Permian. The resulting biostratigraphic scheme has global applicability. Establishing a temporal framework for these faunas has...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geology (Boulder) 2013-03, Vol.41 (3), p.363-366
Main Authors: Rubidge, Bruce S, Erwin, Douglas H, Ramezani, Jahandar, Bowring, Samuel A, de Klerk, William J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
absolute age
Africa
Beaufort Group
biostratigraphy
Calibration
Chordata
chronostratigraphy
Correlation analysis
dates
Extinction
Fossils
Geochronology
igneous rocks
Karoo Basin
Karoo Supergroup
Mass spectrometry
nesosilicates
orthosilicates
Paleozoic
Permian
pyroclastics
Reptilia
silicates
South Africa
Southern Africa
Stratigraphy
Synapsida
Tetrapoda
Therapsida
U/Pb
Upper Permian
Vertebrata
volcanic rocks
zircon
zircon group
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Summary:Therapsid and other tetrapod fossils from the South African Karoo Supergroup provide the most detailed and best studied terrestrial vertebrate record of the Middle and Late Permian. The resulting biostratigraphic scheme has global applicability. Establishing a temporal framework for these faunas has proven difficult: magnetostratigraphy has been hampered by a Jurassic overprint, and intercorrelation with Permian marine sequences has been equivocal. Here we report U-Pb zircon isotope dilution-thermal ionization mass spectrometry (ID-TIMS) dates for five volcanic ashes interbedded with fossils from the Pristerognathus, Tropidostoma, and Cistecephalus vertebrate biozones of the Beaufort Group. This temporal framework allows correlation to marine zonations and improves understanding of rates of faunal evolution and patterns of basin evolution. Our results identify no correlative vertebrate extinctions in the Karoo Supergroup to the marine end-Guadalupian mass extinction and raise the question of whether there is any record of a terrestrial extinction related to the Emeishan large igneous province.
ISSN:0091-7613
1943-2682
DOI:10.1130/G33622.1