Newly integrated approaches towards understanding Late Triassic terrestrial ecosystems

Irmis, Randall B. and Whiteside, Jessica H. (2010) Newly integrated approaches towards understanding Late Triassic terrestrial ecosystems. Palaios, 25 (11), 689-691. (doi:10.2110/palo.2010.S06).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The Late Triassic (~235–201.3 Ma) is one of the critical intervals of Phanerozoic earth history. Against a backdrop of marked climatic differences across Pangea (Sellwood and Valdes, 2006) and changing global atmospheric conditions (e.g., Berner, 2006), the Late Triassic saw the final recovery from the Permo–Triassic mass extinction, just before the end-Triassic mass extinction, and was punctuated by at least one major extraterrestrial bolide impact (Hodych and Dunning, 1992; Ramezani et al., 2005). Late Triassic terrestrial ecosystems are of particular interest, because they saw the origin of many modern vertebrate groups (e.g., Hugall et al., 2007), including the origin and early diversification of dinosaurs, while continents drifted through distinctly different climate zones (Kent and Tauxe, 2005). A variety of recent research examining the terrestrial realm with new analytical tools has dramatically changed our understanding of this time interval on land.

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