Permo-Triassic hothouse climate variability: the record from mudstone of southern Britain

The late Permian to Triassic (~ 260-201 Ma) is one of the hottest periods in the last 500 Ma and covers two mass extinctions, including the largest ever recorded.

The Triassic witnessed dramatic changes in environment on the Pangean supercontinent, with extensive dusty desert formation, sea-level change, and the development of a strong monsoonal regime [1].

However, the detail of climate variability in this vast arid area is unknown, and the potential role and response of atmospheric dust in Permo-Triassic climate change is uninvestigated.

Given atmospheric mineral dust’s importance in climate change [2], and the potential interactions of climate variability with extinction events, resolving this uncertainty is of the utmost importance.

The proposed research directly addresses this through investigation of climate and dust variability recorded in Permo-Triassic desert mudstones in southern Britain.

Detailed reconstruction of past climate during hothouse phases of Earth’s climate not only helps to unravel the complex feedbacks driving climate change, but also generates future warming analogues, increasing the reliability of long-term forecasts of future climate changes and allowing better planning of urgent actions for minimising climate change, as well as mitigation of effects.