据5月29日的《科学》杂志报道说，来自中国西南地区的新的地质学证据表明，在中二叠世的时候，海洋生物出现大规模的死亡，同时，邻近的火山则以一连串的气体性的喷发而爆发。
文章作者说，尽管该研究没有对这两种现象之间的因果关系提出一个精确的论证，但其结果表明，火山活动导致了气温的降低和酸雨，从而造成物种的大规模灭绝。 火山活动同时也被人们怀疑是造成接下来的二叠世末时期物种大规模灭绝的原因，这是在地球历史上物种发生最大规模灭绝的时期。 Paul Wignall及其同僚对一个不寻常的中二叠世系列岩石进行了分析，这些岩石来自中国的峨眉山火山地区，这里有交替出现的火山岩层和含有化石的水成岩层，从而揭露了火山爆发和某些简单海洋生物的消失大约发生在同样的那个时期的全过程中。 在物种灭绝事件之后，碳同位素值发生大幅下降，表明海洋-大气碳循环遭到了大规模的破坏。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Science 29 May 2009:DOI: 10.1126/science.1171956
Volcanism, Mass Extinction, and Carbon Isotope Fluctuations in the Middle Permian of China
Paul B. Wignall,1,* Yadong Sun,2 David P. G. Bond,1 Gareth Izon,3 Robert J. Newton,1 Stéphanie Védrine,1 Mike Widdowson,3 Jason R. Ali,4 Xulong Lai,2 Haishui Jiang,2 Helen Cope,5 Simon H. Bottrell1
The 260-million-year-old Emeishan volcanic province of southwest China overlies and is interbedded with Middle Permian carbonates that contain a record of the Guadalupian mass extinction. Sections in the region thus provide an opportunity to directly monitor the relative timing of extinction and volcanism within the same locations. These show that the onset of volcanism was marked by both large phreatomagmatic eruptions and extinctions amongst fusulinacean foraminifers and calcareous algae. The temporal coincidence of these two phenomena supports the idea of a cause-and-effect relationship. The crisis predates the onset of a major negative carbon isotope excursion that points to subsequent severe disturbance of the ocean-atmosphere carbon cycle.
1 School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
2 Faculty of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China.
3 Department of Earth and Environmental Science, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK.
4 Department of Earth Sciences, Pokfulam Road, University of Hong Kong.
5 Department of Bioengineering, University of Strathclyde, Wolfson Building, 106 Rottenrow, Glasgow G4 0NW, UK.
