Collaborative Research: Using molecular fossils to investigate environmental perturbation during the end-Triassic Mass Extinction: Global vs. local signals

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Collaborative Research: Using molecular fossils to investigate environmental perturbation during the end-Triassic Mass Extinction: Global vs. local signals Jessica Whiteside, Brown University, EAR-1147402 Roger Summons, MIT, EAR-1147685 ABSTRACT This proposal aims to determine the nature of the environmental perturbation at the end-Triassic mass extinction by comparing lipid biomarker and bulk carbon isotopic records from mid-ocean and more restricted marine rift basins. This extinction, at 201.5 million years ago, is one of the "big five" mass extinctions in Earth history, and is associated with multiple, massive increases in CO2 and global warming linked with eruptive pulses of the voluminous Central Atlantic Magmatic Province basalts. PIs study will be the first to examine in detail a mid-ocean record (Panthalassic basaltic plateau of the Queen Charlotte Islands, Canada) and contrast that with records from shallower sections in restricted marine basins in the United Kingdom that have dominated the discussions of the mass extinction. This proposed analysis is of critical importance for understanding this singular moment in Earth history, as well as unraveling the specific cause and effect mechanisms of extinction events in general, by remedying the dearth of studies that utilize taxonomically and environmentally diagnostic compounds that can test specific hypotheses regarding environmental change and extinction mechanisms. In an effort to support emerging scientists from underrepresented groups, this proposal will support one high school summer intern from School District 50 (encompassing the Queen Charlotte archipelago) to assist with lab work and hone geologic skills. Furthermore, PIs will co-lead a summer field trip for tenth grade students of School District 50, and our discoveries will be incorporated into the science curricula and educational programs for 2nd, 4th, 7th, and 10th grades, exposing science to hundreds of students belonging predominantly (65%) to the Haida Nation and other First Nations tribes, highly underrepresented groups in the sciences. New research will be incorporated into the curricula of Brown University and MIT and will be incorporated into K-12 educational outreach programs at schools local to PI institutions, in which multiple undergraduate and graduate students participate.