Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33199627›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020

Molecular and isotopic evidence reveals the end-Triassic carbon isotope excursion is not from massive exogenous light carbon.

Calum P Fox, Xingqian Cui, Jessica H Whiteside, Paul E Olsen, Roger E Summons, Kliti Grice

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
15.7field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed, 55 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Metabolic controls on the carbon isotope fractionations of bacterial fermentation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  2. Article
  3. Correlation of sub-centennial-scale pulses of initial Central Atlantic Magmatic Province lavas and the end-Triassic extinctions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 6 institutions in 5 countries.

Calum P FoxWestern Australia Organic & Isotope Geochemistry Centre, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The Institute for Geoscience Research, Curtin University, Perth, WA 6845, Australia.ORCID 0000-0001-9345-923X
Xingqian CuiSchool of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200030 Shanghai, China.ORCID 0000-0001-6705-7595
Jessica H WhitesideOcean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton, University of Southampton, SO14 3ZH Southampton, United Kingdom; J.Whiteside@soton.ac.uk polsen@ldeo.columbia.edu K.grice@curtin.edu.au.
Paul E OlsenDepartment of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964 J.Whiteside@soton.ac.uk polsen@ldeo.columbia.edu K.grice@curtin.edu.au.ORCID 0000-0002-5852-6326
Roger E SummonsDepartment of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.ORCID 0000-0002-7144-8537
Kliti GriceWestern Australia Organic & Isotope Geochemistry Centre, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The Institute for Geoscience Research, Curtin University, Perth, WA 6845, Australia; J.Whiteside@soton.ac.uk polsen@ldeo.columbia.edu K.grice@curtin.edu.au.
Curtin University · AUKhalifa University of Science and Technology · AELamont-Doherty Earth Observatory · USMassachusetts Institute of Technology · USNational Oceanography Centre · GBShanghai Jiao Tong University · CN

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The negative organic carbon isotope excursion (CIE) associated with the end-Triassic mass extinction (ETE) is conventionally interpreted as the result of a massive flux of isotopically light carbon from exogenous sources into the atmosphere (e.g., thermogenic methane and/or methane clathrate dissociation linked to the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province [CAMP]). Instead, we demonstrate that at its type locality in the Bristol Channel Basin (UK), the CIE was caused by a marine to nonmarine transition resulting from an abrupt relative sea level drop. Our biomarker and compound-specific carbon isotopic data show that the emergence of microbial mats, influenced by an influx of fresh to brackish water, provided isotopically light carbon to both organic and inorganic carbon pools in centimeter-scale water depths, leading to the negative CIE. Thus, the iconic CIE and the disappearance of marine biota at the type locality are the result of local environmental change and do not mark either the global extinction event or input of exogenous light carbon into the atmosphere. Instead, the main extinction phase occurs slightly later in marine strata, where it is coeval with terrestrial extinctions and ocean acidification driven by CAMP-induced increases in

Indexed as

biomarkerscarbon isotopesend-Triassic mass extinctionlarge igneous provinces

Identifiers

PMID33199627
PMCPMC7720136
OpenAlexW3099083984

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.