The Triassic Paleoclimate.

Early to Middle Triassic (240Ma) From Wikimedia Commons.

There are three basic states for Earth climate: Icehouse, Greenhouse (subdivided into Cool and Warm states), and Hothouse (Kidder & Worsley, 2010). The “Hothouse” condition is relatively short-lived and is consequence from the release of anomalously large inputs of CO2 into the atmosphere during the formation of Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs), when atmospheric CO2 concentrations may rise above 16 times (4,800 ppmv), while the “Icehouse” is characterized by polar ice, with alternating glacial–interglacial episodes in response to orbital forcing. The ‘Cool Greenhouse” displays  some polar ice and alpine glaciers,  with global average temperatures between 21° and 24°C. Finally, the ‘Warm Greenhouse’ lacked of any polar ice, and global average temperatures might have ranged from 24° to 30°C.

The rifting of Pangea during the Mesozoic modified the paleoposition and shoreline configuration of the land masses and generated huge epicontinental seas. This altered significantly the oceanic circulation and caused profound consequences for paleoclimates and for the evolution of life.

Siberian flood-basalt flows in Putorana, Taymyr Peninsula.(From Earth science: Lethal volcanism, Paul B. Wignall, 2011, Nature 477, 285–286 )

During the Late Permian, massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia covered more than 2 millions of km 2 with lava flows, releasing more carbon in the atmosphere and high amounts of fluorine and chlorine increasing the climatic instability, which means that the Mesozoic began under extreme hothouse conditions.

The Early Triassic transition is marked by a moderate oxygen depletion and by mass extinction of glossopterids, gigantopterids, tree lycopsids and cordaites, as major contributors to coal deposits in the southern hemisphere. That was accompanied  by unusually anoxic swamp soils (Retallack, 2013). The rifting of Gondwana began during the Early Triassic with the opening of the Indian Ocean and the separation of India and Australia, that modified shoreline configuration and enhanced platform areas inducing intense marine biodiversification. It was suggested that during that time there was a moderate oxygen depletion that caused the low body size of the amphibian and reptilian life-forms found in those rocks.

Fossil of Lystrosaurus, one of the few survivors of the Late Permian shows a variety of adaptations to low oxygen atmosphere. It was by far the most common terrestrial vertebrate of the Early Triassic (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart; from Wikimedia Commons).

By the Mid Triassic, global temperature was still high – between 20°C and 30°C – and the atmospheric CO2 began to increase. There are reported episodes of humid climate registered by fossil vertebrates from the Molteno Formation in South Africa, and from Los Rastros Formation in central western Argentina.

The Late Triassic is marked by a return to the hothouse condition of the Early Triassic, with two greenhouse crisis that may also have played a role in mass extinctions and long-term evolutionary trends (Retallack, 2013). The paleoclimate was a very arid with intense evaporation rate. Although there was at least one time of significant increase in rainfall known as the “Carnian Pluvial Event”, possibly related to the rifting of Pangea. Massive volcanic eruptions from a large region known as the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) release huge amounts of lava and gas, including carbon dioxide, sulfur and methane into the atmosphere which led to global warming and acidification of the oceans.

Light-microscope photographs of Classopollis pollen from the Late Triassic (Image adapted from Kürschner et al., 2013).

The End-Triassic Extinction  is probably the least understood of the big five. Most mammal-like reptiles and large amphibians disappeared, as well as early dinosaur groups. In the oceans, this event eliminated conodonts and nearly annihilated corals, ammonites, brachiopods and bivalves. In the Southern Hemisphere, the vegetation turnover consisted in the replacement to Alisporites (corystosperm)-dominated assemblage to a Classopollis (cheirolepidiacean)-dominated one.

Most of scientists agree that the extinctions were caused by massive volcanic activity associated with the break-up of the super-continent Pangaea. Another theory is that a   huge impact was the trigger of the extinction event. At least two craters impact were reported by the end of the Triassic. The Manicouagan Impact crater in the Côte-Nord region of Québec, Canada was caused by the impact of a 5km diameter asteroid, and it was suggested that could be part of a multiple impact event which also formed the Rochechouart crater in France, Saint Martin crater in Canada, Obolon crater in Ukraine, and the Red Wing crater in USA (Spray et al., 1998).

References:

Holz, M., Mesozoic paleogeography and paleoclimates – a discussion of the diverse greenhouse and hothouse conditions of an alien world, Journal of South American Earth Sciences (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.jsames.2015.01.001

Sellwood, B.W. & Valdes, P.J. 2006. Mesozoic climates: General circulation models and the rock Record. Sedimentary Geology 190:269–287.

Retallack, G.J. 2013. Permian and Triassic greenhouse crises. Gondwana Research 24:90–103.

Retallack, G.J. 2009. Greenhouse crises of the past 300 million years. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 121:1441–1455.

The Great Acceleration.

 

Iron and Coal, 1855–60, by William Bell Scott illustrates the central place of coal and iron working in the industrial revolution (From Wikimedia Commons)

During a meeting of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) celebrated in Mexico, in 2000, the Vice-Chair of IGBP, Paul Crutzen, proposed the use of the term Anthropocene to designate the last three centuries of human domination of earth’s ecosystems, and to mark the end of the current Holocene geological epoch. He suggested that the start date of the Anthropocene must be placed near the end of the 18th century, about the time that the industrial revolution began, and noted that such a start date would coincide with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt in 1784.

Although there is no agreement on when the Anthropocene started, researchers accept that the Anthropocene is a time span marked by human interaction with Earth’s biophysical system. It has been defined, primarily, by significant and measurable increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from ice cores, and other geologic features including synthetic organic compounds and radionuclides. Eugene Stoermer, in an interview in 2012, proposed that the geological mark for the Anthropocene was the isotopic signature of the first atomic bomb tests. Hence,  Anthropocene deposits would be those that may include the globally distributed primary artificial radionuclide signal (Zalasiewicz et al, 2015).

 

Alternative temporal boundaries for the Holocene–Anthropocene boundary (calibrated in thousand of years before present) From Smith 2013

 

Human activity is a major driver of the dynamics of Earth system. After the World War II, the impact of human activity on the global environment dramatically increased. This period associated with very rapid growth in human population, resource consumption, energy use and pollution, has been called the Great Acceleration.

During the Great Acceleration, the atmospheric CO2 concentration grew, from 311 ppm in 1950 to 369 ppm in 2000 (W. Steffen et al., 2011). About one third of the carbon dioxide released by anthropogenic activity is absorbed by the oceans. When CO2 dissolves in seawater, it produce carbonic acid. The carbonic acid dissociates in the water releasing hydrogen ions and bicarbonate. Then, the formation of bicarbonate removes carbonate ions from the water, making them less available for use by organisms. Ocean acidification affects the biogeochemical dynamics of calcium carbonate, organic carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in the ocean, and will directly impact in a wide range of marine organisms that build shells from calcium carbonate, like planktonic coccolithophores, molluscs,  echinoderms, corals, and coralline algae.

Clastic plastiglomerate containing molten plastic and basalt and coral fragments (Image adapted from P. Corcoran et al., 2013)

One important marker for the future geological record is a new type of rock formed by anthropogenically derived materials. This type of rock has been named plastiglomerate, and has been originally described on Kamilo Beach, Hawaii. This anthropogenically influenced material has great potential to form a marker horizon of human pollution, signaling the occurrence of the Anthropocene epoch (Corcoran et al., 2013).

Climate change, shifts in oceanic pH, loss of biodiversity and widespread pollution have all been identified as potential planetary tipping point. Since the industrial revolution, the wave of animal and plant extinctions that began with the late Quaternary has accelerated. Calculations suggest that the current rates of extinction are 100–1000 times above normal, or background levels. We are in the midst of  the so called “Sixth Mass Extinction”.

Dealing with the transition into the Anthropocene requires careful consideration of its social, economic and biotic effects. In his master book L’Evolution Créatrice (1907), French philosopher Henri Bergson, wrote:  “A century has elapsed since the invention of the steam engine, and we are only just beginning to feel the depths of the shock it gave us.”

 

References:

Will Steffen, Wendy Broadgate, Lisa Deutsch, Owen Gaffney, and Cornelia Ludwig. The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, January 16, 2015 DOI: 10.1177/2053019614564785

Jan Zalasiewicz et al. When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal. Quaternary International, published online January 12, 2015; doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.045

Smith, B.D., Zeder, M.A., The onset of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene (2013),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2013.05.001

Ellis, E.C., 2011. Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369, 1010–1035.

 

A brief introduction to the origin of Birds.

Archaeopteryx lithographica, specimen displayed at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. (From Wikimedia Commons)

Birds originated from a theropod lineage more than 150 million years ago. Their evolutionary history is one of the most enduring and fascinating debates in paleontology. In recent years, several discovered fossils of theropods and early birds have filled the morphological, functional, and temporal gaps along the line to modern birds. The discovered fossils demonstrate that distinctive bird characteristics such as feathers, flight, endothermic physiology, unique strategies for reproduction and growth, and a novel pulmonary system have a sequential and stepwise transformational pattern, with many arising early in dinosaur evolution, like the unusually crouched hindlimb for bipedal locomotion,the furcula and the “semilunate” carpal that appeared early in the theropod lineage (Allen et al., 2013; Xu et al., 2014).  Also, the discovery of Mahakala – a basal dromaeosaurid dinosaur named for one of the eight protector deities in Tibetan Buddhism – suggests that extreme miniaturization and laterally movable arms necessary for flapping flight are ancestral for paravian theropods. In contrast, a number of basal birds resemble theropods in many features.

Sciurumimus (A); the basal coelurosaur Sinosauropteryx (B) with filamentous feathers; the deinonychosaurs Anchiornis (C) and Microraptor (D). Adapted from Xu et al., 2014.

Anatomical features like aspects of egg shape, ornamentation, microstructure, and porosity of living birds trace their origin to the maniraptoran theropods, such as oviraptorosaurs and troodontids. In addition, some preserving brooding postures, are known for four oviraptorosaurs, two troodontids, a dromaeosaur, and one basal bird providing clear evidence for parental care of eggs.

In birds, particularly their forebrains, are expanded relative to body size. The volumetric expansion of the avian endocranium began relatively early in theropod evolution. Archaeopteryx lithographica is volumetrically intermediate between those of more basal theropods and crown birds (Balanoff et al., 2013). The digital brain cast of Archaeopteryx also present an indentation that could be from the wulst, a neurological structure present in living birds used in information processing and motor control with two primary inputs: somatosensory and visual. Birds also exhibit the most advanced vertebrate visual system, with a highly developed ability to distinguish colors over a wide range of wavelengths.

Reconstruction of pulmonary components [cervical air-sac system (green), lung (orange), and abdominal air-sac system (blue)] in the theropod Majungatholus (From Xu et al., 2014)

Feathers were once considered to be unique avialan structures. The megalosaurus Sciurumimus, the compsognathus Sinosauropteryx, and a few other dinosaurs, document the appearance of primitive feathers. More recent studies indicated that non avian dinosaurs, as part of Archosauria, possessed the entirety of the known non keratin protein-coding toolkit for making feathers (Lowe et al., 2015)

The evolution of flight involved a series of adaptive changes at the morphological and molecular levels,like the fusion and elimination of some bones and the pneumatization of the remaining ones. The extensive skeletal pneumaticity in theropods such as Majungasaurus demonstrates that a complex air-sac system and birdlike respiration evolved in birds’ theropod ancestors. The increased metabolism associated with homeothermy and powered flight requires an efficient gas exchange process during pulmonary ventilation. Moreover, recent anatomical and physiological studies show that alligators, and monitor lizards exhibit respiratory systems and unidirectional breathing akin to those of birds, which indicate that unidirectional breathing is a primitive characteristic of archosaurs or an even more inclusive group with the complex air-sac system evolving later within Archosauria.

The earliest diversification of extant birds (Neornithes) occurred during the Cretaceous period and after the mass extinction event at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, the Neoaves, the most diverse avian clade, suffered a rapid global expansion and radiation. Today, with more than 10500 living species, birds are the most species-rich class of tetrapod vertebrates.

 

References:

Xing Xu, Zhonghe Zhou, Robert Dudley, Susan Mackem, Cheng-Ming Chuong, Gregory M. Erickson, David J. Varricchio, An integrative approach to understanding bird origins, Science, Vol. 346 no. 6215, DOI: 10.1126/science.1253293.

Puttick, M. N., Thomas, G. H. and Benton, M. J. (2014), HIGH RATES OF EVOLUTION PRECEDED THE ORIGIN OF BIRDS. Evolution, 68: 1497–1510. doi: 10.1111/evo.12363 A.

H. Turner, D. Pol, J. A. Clarke, G. M. Erickson, M. A. Norell, A basal dromaeosaurid and size evolution preceding avian flight. Science 317, 1378–1381 (2007).pmid: 17823350.

V. Allen, K. T. Bates, Z. Li, J. R. Hutchinson, Linking the evolution of body shape and locomotor biomechanics in bird-line archosaurs. Nature 497, 104–107 (2013). doi: 10.1038/nature12059; pmid: 23615616

A. M. Balanoff, G. S. Bever, T. B. Rowe, M. A. Norell, Evolutionary origins of the avian brain. Nature 501, 93–96 (2013). doi: 10.1038/nature12424; pmid: 23903660

M. S. Y. Lee, A. Cau, D. Naish, G. J. Dyke, Sustained miniaturization and anatomical innovation in the dinosaurian ancestors of birds. Science 345, 562–566 (2014). doi: 10.1126/science.1252243; pmid: 25082702

Craig B. Lowe, Julia A. Clarke, Allan J. Baker, David Haussler and Scott V. Edwards, Feather Development Genes and Associated Regulatory Innovation Predate the Origin of Dinosauria, Mol Biol Evol (2015) 32 (1): 23-28. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msu309