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Wildfires sparked ‘the Great Dying’ on Earth 250 million years ago, Chinese study confirms
- Study led by Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers finds frequent, intense wildfires may have led to the collapse of terrestrial ecosystems
- Largest mass extinction event in the end-Permian period wiped out nearly 90 per cent of marine and land species on Earth
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Chinese scientists have found more evidence suggesting that wildfires played an important role in what might have been the Earth’s largest mass extinction event around 250 million years ago.
The mega event at the end of the Permian period – long before the rise of dinosaurs – wiped out nearly 90 per cent of marine and land species in a process that is often labelled “the Great Dying”.
Although the direct cause of the annihilation has been widely debated, there is growing evidence to suggest that catastrophic global warming and aridity caused by volcanic activities were major driving factors.
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Intense volcanic activities at the time triggered the massive release of greenhouse and other poisonous gases, leading to global warming, frequent wildfires and “aridification”, a process in which a region becomes increasingly dry, Chinese researchers said in a recently published study.
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Wildfire breaks out in central Thailand, engulfs mountaintops
Wildfire breaks out in central Thailand, engulfs mountaintops
Most previous research into the extinction focused on ocean records during the end-Permian period, but scientists over the past decade have also started to look at the terrestrial records, according to Jiao Shenglin, lead author of the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters last week.
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