Early Triassic intermittent biotic crisis and recovery following the great end-Permian extinction are linked to orbital interactions between Earth (center) and Mars (upper left). The driving forces of these biotic recoveries and turnovers are reminiscent of yin-yang, the Chinese philosophy that describes how opposite forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world. Venus (lower right) and Jupiter (upper right) contribute to the 405-kyr astronomical metronome that is used to define Early Triassic time.
Obliquity-forced climate during the Early Triassic hothouse
The recent geochronologic evidence constraining the latest age of the Siberian Traps to 0.5 m.y. following the end-Permian mass extinction makes it unlikely that volcanism drove the unusual global dynamism of the Early Triassic, as currently widely thought.
The discovery of dominant obliquity-forced sedimentation across the South China Plate margin synchronized with global changes provides an alternative view: the global changes are linked to “recovery” responses to Earth’s obliquity forcing of an unbalanced, post-extinction world.
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