Hints from selenium isotopes on the end-Permian mass extinction

UWAB postdoc Eva Stüeken, Professor Roger Buick, and collaborators published a new paper that studied isotope ratios of selenium, a trace element. Their results show that biological productivity of macro-organisms collapsed during the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, but the collapse was probably not caused by a shortage of nutrients. Other factors such as ocean acidification or perturbations of food webs may have been more important.

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