Terrestrial ecosystem collapse and soil erosion before the end-Permian marine extinction: Organic geochemical evidence from marine and non-marine records

A terrestrial ecosystem collapse event accompanied by extensive soil erosion has been widely recorded in marine sedimentary rocks at the vicinity of the end-Permian mass extinction. However, the precise timing of this event and its impact on the marine extinction have not yet been ascertained. Here we present an organic geochemical study of non-marine and marine sections from the South China Craton, which shows that terrestrial ecosystem collapse was accompanied by a soil erosion event, and was followed by the end-Permian marine extinction. Two separate events devastated the terrestrial ecosystem prior to the marine extinction event, over a timespan of dozens of kyr. Bacteria flourished in the non-marine section coeval with a decline in terrestrial plants and in the marine section during the end-Permian marine extinction. A proto-recovery of herbaceous plants (not woody plants) occurred dozens of kyr after the end-Permian marine extinction and coincided with a global warming maximum and oceanic anoxia/euxinia.