Siberian Traps

Coordinates: 67°N 90°E / 67°N 90°E / 67; 90
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the geological feature. For the chess opening, see
Siberian Trap
.
The extent of the Siberian Traps (map in German)

The Siberian Traps (Russian: Сибирские траппы, romanized: Sibirskiye trappy) is a large region of volcanic rock, known as a large igneous province, in Siberia, Russia. The massive eruptive event that formed the traps is one of the largest known volcanic events in the last 500 million years.

The eruptions continued for roughly two million years and spanned the

Smithian-Spathian, Olenekian-Anisian, Middle-Late Anisian, and Anisian-Ladinian extinction events.[5]

Large volumes of basaltic lava covered a large expanse of Siberia in a flood basalt event. Today, the area is covered by about 7 million km2 (3 million sq mi) of basaltic rock, with a volume of around 4 million km3 (1 million cu mi).[6]

Etymology

The term "trap" has been used in

rock formations. It is derived from the Swedish word for stairs ("trappa") and refers to the step-like hills forming the landscape of the region.[7]

Formation

Step-like geomorphology at the Putorana Plateau, which is a World Heritage Site.

The source of the Siberian Traps basaltic rock has been attributed to a

Iceland plume), the plume produced the Siberian Traps in the Permian and Triassic periods, after earlier producing the Viluy Traps to the east, and later going on to produce volcanic activity on the floor of the Arctic Ocean in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, and then generating volcanic activity in Iceland.[9] Other plate tectonic causes have also been suggested.[8] Another possible cause may be the impact that formed the Wilkes Land crater in Antarctica, which is estimated to have occurred around the same time and been nearly antipodal to the traps.[10]

The main source of rock in this formation is basalt, but both mafic and felsic rocks are present, so this formation is officially called a Flood Basalt Province. The inclusion of mafic and felsic rock indicates multiple other eruptions that occurred and coincided with the one-million-year-long set of eruptions that created the majority of the basaltic layers. The traps are divided into sections based on their chemical, stratigraphical, and petrographical composition.[6]

The Siberian traps are underlain by the Tungus

Syneclise, a large sedimentary basin containing thick sequences of Early-Mid Paleozoic aged carbonate and evaporite deposits, as well as Carboniferous-Permian aged coal bearing clastic rocks. When heated, such as by igneous intrusions, these rocks are capable of emitting large amounts of toxic and greenhouse gases.[11]

Effects on prehistoric life

The Putorana Plateau is composed of Siberian Traps.

One of the major questions is whether the Siberian Traps were directly responsible for the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event that occurred 250 million years ago,[12] or if they were themselves caused by some other, larger event, such as an asteroid impact. One hypothesis put forward is that the volcanism triggered the growth of Methanosarcina, a microbe that then emitted large amounts of methane into Earth's atmosphere,[13] ultimately altering the Earth's carbon cycle based on observations such as a significant increase of inorganic carbon reservoirs in marine environments.[13] Recent research has highlighted the impact of vegetative deposition in the preceding Carboniferous period on the severity of the disruption to the carbon cycle.[14]

This extinction event, also colloquially called the Great Dying, affected all life on Earth, and is estimated to have led to the extinction of about 81% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species living at the time.[15][16][17] Some of the disastrous events that affected the Earth continued to repeat themselves five to six million years after the initial extinction occurred.[18] Over time a small portion of the life that survived the extinction was able to repopulate and expand starting with low trophic levels (producers) until the higher trophic levels (consumers) were able to be re-established.[18] Calculations of sea water temperature from δ18O measurements indicate that at the peak of the extinction, the Earth underwent lethally hot global warming, in which equatorial ocean temperatures exceeded 40 °C (104 °F).[19] It took roughly eight to nine million years for any diverse ecosystem to be re-established; however, new classes of animals were established after the extinction that did not exist beforehand.[18]

Palaeontological evidence further indicates that the global distribution of

marine vertebrates at least during two thermal maxima, whereas terrestrial equatorial temperatures were sufficiently severe to suppress plant and animal abundance during most of the Early Triassic.[21]

Dating

The volcanism that occurred in the Siberian Traps resulted in copious amounts of magma being ejected from the Earth's crust—leaving permanent traces of rock from the same time period of the mass extinction that can be examined today.[22] More specifically, zircon is found in some of the volcanic rocks. To further the accuracy of the age of the zircon, several varying aged pieces of zircon were organized into a timeline based on when they crystallized.[22] The CA-TIMS technique, a chemical abrasion age-dating technique that eliminates variability in accuracy due to lead depletion in zircon over time,[23] was then used to accurately determine the age of the zircons found in the Siberian Traps. Eliminating the variability due to lead, the CA-TIMS age-dating technique allowed uranium within the zircon to be the centre focus in linking the volcanism in the Siberian Traps that resulted in high amounts of magmatic material with the Permian–Triassic mass extinction.[22]

Layers of igneous rock from the Putorana Plateau.

To further the connection with the Permian–Triassic extinction event, other disastrous events occurred around the same time period, such as sea level changes, meteor impacts and volcanism.[17] Specifically focusing on volcanism, rock samples from the Siberian Traps and other southern regions were obtained and compared.[24] Basalts and gabbro samples from several southern regions close to and from the Siberian Traps were dated based on argon isotope 40 and argon isotope 39 age-dating methods.[24] Feldspar and biotite was specifically used to focus on the samples' age and duration of the presence of magma from the volcanic event in the Siberian Traps.[24] The majority of the basalt and gabbro samples dated to 250 million years ago, covered a surface area of five million square kilometres on the Siberian Traps[24] and occurred within a short period of time with rapid rock solidification/cooling.[25] Studies confirmed that samples of gabbro and basalt from the same time period of the Permian–Triassic event from the other southern regions also matched the age of samples within the Siberian Traps. This confirms the assumption of the linkage between the age of volcanic rocks within the Siberian Traps, along with rock samples from other southern regions to the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event.[25]

Mineral deposits

native
iron

The giant Norilsk-Talnakh nickel–copper–palladium deposit formed within the magma conduits in the most complete part of the Siberian Traps.[26] It has been linked to the Permian–Triassic extinction event, which occurred approximately 251.4 million years ago,[17] based on large amounts of nickel and other elements found in rock beds that were laid down after the extinction occurred.[27] The method used to correlate the extinction event with the surplus amount of nickel located in the Siberian Traps compares the timeline of the magmatism within the traps and the timeline of the extinction itself.[28] Before the linkage between magmatism and the extinction event was discovered, it was hypothesized that the mass extinction and volcanism occurred at the same time due to the linkages in rock composition.[22]

See also

References

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  2. S2CID 41302171.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
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  3. New York Times
    , April 30, 2012. Retrieved on May 2, 2012.
  4. S2CID 256946122
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  5. doi:10.1016/j.rgg.2010.08.009
    . Retrieved 12 January 2023.
  6. ^
    doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2013.04.001
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  7. ^ Trap at dictionary.reference.com
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4051-6148-0
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  9. ISBN 9780813724300
    , retrieved 2017-02-25
  10. doi:10.1029/2008GC002149
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    PMID 24706773
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  14. doi:10.1130/G47365.1
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  15. ISBN 978-0-500-28573-2
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  16. ^ Brannen, Peter (2017-07-29). "Opinion | when Life on Earth Was Nearly Extinguished". The New York Times.
  17. ^
    S2CID 45230096
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  18. ^
    S2CID 55342040
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  19. S2CID 41302171
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  20. Eurekalert!
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  21. S2CID 41302171.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
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  22. ^
    PMID 26601239
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  23. doi:10.1016/j.chemgeo.2005.03.011
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  24. ^
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  26. ISBN 978-94-007-5021-0
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  27. PMID 28223492
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External links


67°N 90°E / 67°N 90°E / 67; 90

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