Triassic–Jurassic extinction event
Mass extinction ending the Triassic period / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Triassic–Jurassic (Tr-J) extinction event (TJME), often called the end-Triassic extinction, was a Mesozoic extinction event that marks the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods, 201.4 million years ago,[1] and is one of the top five major extinction events of the Phanerozoic eon,[2] profoundly affecting life on land and in the oceans. In the seas, the entire class of conodonts[3][4] and 23–34% of marine genera disappeared.[5][6] On land, all archosauromorphs other than crocodylomorphs, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs became extinct; some of the groups which died out were previously abundant, such as aetosaurs, phytosaurs, and rauisuchids. Some remaining non-mammalian therapsids and many of the large temnospondyl amphibians had become extinct prior to the Jurassic as well. However, there is still much uncertainty regarding a connection between the Tr-J boundary and terrestrial vertebrates, due to a lack of terrestrial fossils from the Rhaetian (latest) stage of the Triassic.[7] Plants, crocodylomorphs, dinosaurs, pterosaurs and mammals were left largely untouched;[8][9][10] this allowed the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and crocodylomorphs to become the dominant land animals for the next 135 million years.[11][9]
Statistical analysis of marine losses at this time suggests that the decrease in diversity was caused more by a decrease in speciation than by an increase in extinctions.[12] Nevertheless, a pronounced turnover in plant spores and a collapse of coral reef communities indicates that an ecological catastrophe did occur at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary.[13][14] Older hypotheses on extinction have proposed that gradual climate or sea level change may be the culprit,[15] or perhaps one or more asteroid strikes.[16][17][18] However, the most well-supported and widely-held theory for the cause of the Tr-J extinction places the blame on the start of volcanic eruptions in the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP),[19] which was responsible for outputting a high amount of carbon dioxide into Earth's atmosphere,[20][21] inducing profound global warming,[22] along with ocean acidification.[23]