Atmospheric CO2 rise is one of the most pressing societal and scientific issues, but future projections of system behavior often rely heavily on models rather than data. Earth underwent a very relevant analog experiment 200 million years ago, and this project seeks to learn and abstract from that experiment. The CO2 release associated with the Triassic-Jurassic (T-J) boundary is estimated to have risen at a rate comparable to the present-day (as a result of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province volcanism, CAMP), and tellingly, it was associated with a mass extinction. Notably, representatives of the fauna that inhabits today's seas, the so-called modern fauna were preferentially negatively affected by the T-J event versus other mass extinctions, making the T-J perhaps the most relevant mass extinction with respect to the present-day impact of high CO2 levels on the biosystem.
The T-J event is arguably the least studied of the mass extinctions that frame the Mesozoic, and it represents an underutilized opportunity to investigate a geologically rapid injection of CO2 into the Earth system. The results of this CO2 pulse are quantifiable, and will serve to establish new models of system response to punctuated perturbations. The PIs believe that using novel geochemical tracers for weathering and redox, coupled with biofacies analysis, will result in a paradigm shift in our knowledge of such an event. The proxies will inform a novel model that links a solid Earth model, carbon cycle model, and ecological model. This project will help to elucidate the details of the most significant mass extinction to affect the modern fauna. Moreover, the new models developed for the T-J event will have relevance for other mass extinctions, including the ongoing Anthropocene event.
