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Originally published in Science Express on 20 January 2005
Science 4 February 2005:
Vol. 307. no. 5710, pp. 709 - 714
DOI: 10.1126/science.1107068
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Reports

Abrupt and Gradual Extinction Among Late Permian Land Vertebrates in the Karoo Basin, South Africa

Peter D. Ward,1* Jennifer Botha,3 Roger Buick,2 Michiel O. De Kock,5 Douglas H. Erwin,6 Geoffrey H. Garrison,2 Joseph L. Kirschvink,4 Roger Smith3

The Karoo basin of South Africa exposes a succession of Upper Permian to Lower Triassic terrestrial strata containing abundant terrestrial vertebrate fossils. Paleomagnetic/magnetostratigraphic and carbon-isotope data allow sections to be correlated across the basin. With this stratigraphy, the vertebrate fossil data show a gradual extinction in the Upper Permian punctuated by an enhanced extinction pulse at the Permian-Triassic boundary interval, particularly among the dicynodont therapsids, coinciding with negative carbon-isotope anomalies.

1 Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
2 Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
3 Karoo Paleontology, Iziko: South African Museum, Cape Town, South Africa.
4 Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
5 Department of Geology, Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, South Africa.
6 Department of Paleobiology, MRC-121 Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: argo{at}u.washington.edu

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