The Permian[note 1] is a geologic period The geologic time scale provides a system of chronologic measurement relating stratigraphy to time that is used by geologists, paleontologists and other earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred during the history of the Earth. The table of geologic time spans presented here agrees with the dates and system characterized among land vertebrates by the diversification of the early amniotes The amniotes are a group of tetrapod vertebrates that have a terrestrially adapted egg. They currently include mammals (synapsids), and sauropsids (reptiles and birds), as well as their fossil ancestors. Amniote embryos, whether laid as eggs or carried by the female, are protected and aided by several extensive membranes. In eutherian mammals ( into the ancestral groups of the mammals Mammals are a class of vertebrate, air-breathing animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by hair and/or fur, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain. Some mammals have sweat glands, but most do not, turtles Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield. "Turtle" may either refer to the Testudines as a whole, or to particular Testudines which make up a form taxon that is not monophyletic—see also sea turtle, terrapin, tortoise, and the, lepidosaurs and archosaurs Archosaurs are a group of diapsid amniotes whose living representatives consist of modern birds and crocodilians. This group also includes all extinct dinosaurs, many extinct crocodilian relatives, and pterosaurs (although their inclusion has been disputed). Archosauria, the archosaur clade, is a crown group that includes the most recent common. The Permian Period follows the Carboniferous The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Ma , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Ma (ICS, 2004, and extends from 299.0 ± 0.8 to 251.0 ± 0.4 Ma (million years before the present). It is the last period of the Paleozoic The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era (from the Greek palaios , "old" and zoe (ζωή), "life", meaning "ancient life") is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Paleozoic spanned from roughly 542 to 251 million years ago (ICS, 2004), and is subdivided into six geologic periods; from oldest to Era and famous for its ending epoch event In the fields of chronology and periodization, an epoch means an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. The "epoch" then serves as a reference point from which time is measured. Time measurement units are counted from the epoch so that the date and time of events can be specified unambiguously, the largest mass extinction known to science. The Permian Period was named after the kingdom of Permia Great Perm or Permia was a medieval Komi state in the modern-day Perm Krai of Russia. Cherdyn is said to have been its capital in modern-day Russia Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ; Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə] ( listen)), is a state in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, by Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet KCB DCL FRS FRSE FLS PRGS PBA MRIA was a Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian system in 1841.

Contents

ICS Subdivisions

Official (ICS The International Commission on Stratigraphy , sometimes referred to by the unofficial "International Stratigraphic Commission" is a daughter or major subcommittee grade scientific daughter organization that concerns itself with stratigraphy, geological, and geochronological matters on a global scale, 2004,[5] Subdivisions of the Permian System, from most recent to most ancient rock layers are:

Upper Permian (Late Permian) or Lopingian, Tatarian, or Zechstein, epoch An epoch is in geology a division of the geologic timescale. Epochs are subdivisions of periods and are themselves subdivided into ages [260.4 ± 0.7 Ma - 251.0 ± 0.4 Ma][6]
Middle Permian, or Guadalupian epoch [270.6 ± 0.7 - 260.4 ± 0.7 Ma][7]
  • Capitanian stage [265.8 ± 0.7 - 260.4 ± 0.7 Ma]
  • Wordian stage [268.0 ± 0.7 - 265.8 ± 0.7 Ma]
  • Roadian stage [270.6 ± 0.7 - 268.0 ± 0.7 Ma]
  • Others:
    • Kazanian or Maokovian (European) [270.6 ± 0.7 - 260.4 ± 0.7 Ma][8]
    • Braxtonian stage (New Zealand) [270.6 ± 0.7 - 260.4 ± 0.7 Ma]
Lower / Early Permian or Cisuralian epoch [299.0 ± 0.8 - 270.6 ± 0.7 Ma][9]
  • Kungurian (Irenian / Filippovian / Leonard) stage [275.6 ± 0.7 - 270.6 ± 0.7 Ma]
  • Artinskian (Baigendzinian / Aktastinian) stage [284.4 ± 0.7 - 275.6 ± 0.7 Ma]
  • Sakmarian (Sterlitamakian / Tastubian / Leonard / Wolfcamp) stage [294.6 ± 0.8 - 284.4 ± 0.7 Ma]
  • Asselian (Krumaian / Uskalikian / Surenian / Wolfcamp) stage [299.0 ± 0.8 - 294.6 ± 0.8 Ma]
  • Others:
    • Telfordian (New Zealand) [289 - 278]
    • Mangapirian (New Zealand) [278 - 270.6]

Oceans

Sea levels Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface (such as the halfway point between the mean high tide and the mean low tide); used as a standard in reckoning land elevation. MSL also plays an extremely important role in aviation, where standard sea level pressure is used as the measurement datum of altitude at flight in the Permian remained generally low, and near-shore environments were limited by the collection of almost all major landmasses A landmass is a large continuous area of land. Although it may be most often written as one word to distinguish it from the usage "land mass"—the measure of land area—it is also used as two words into a single continent -- Pangaea Pangaea, Pangæa, or Pangea was the supercontinent that presumably existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration. This could have in part caused the widespread extinctions of marine species at the end of the period by severely reducing shallow coastal areas preferred by many marine organisms.

Paleogeography

Geography of the Permian world

During the Permian, all the Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the World, the Blue Planet,[note 6] or by its Latin name, Terra.[note 7]'s major land masses were collected into a single supercontinent known as Pangaea Pangaea, Pangæa, or Pangea was the supercontinent that presumably existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration. Pangaea straddled the equator An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass. The capitalized term Equator refers to the Earth's equator and extended toward the poles, with a corresponding effect on ocean currents in the single great ocean ("Panthalassa Panthalassa , also known as the Panthalassic Ocean, was the vast global ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea, during the late Paleozoic and the early Mesozoic years. It included the Pacific Ocean to the west and north and the Tethys Ocean to the southeast. It became the Pacific Ocean, following the closing of the Tethys basin and the", the "universal sea"), and the Paleo-Tethys Ocean, a large ocean that was between Asia and Gondwana. The Cimmeria continent rifted In geology, a rift or chasm is a place where the Earth's crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics away from Gondwana Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland, is the name given to a southern precursor supercontinent. Its final geological suturing occurred between ca. 570 and 510 million years ago (Ma), joining East Gondwana to West Gondwana. It later separated from Laurasia 180-200 million years ago during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent that existed about 50 and drifted north to Laurasia Laurasia was a supercontinent that most recently existed as a part of the split of the Pangaea supercontinent in the late Mesozoic era. It was located in the north after Pangaea split into two followed by Gondwanaland in the south. It included most of the landmasses which make up today's continents of the northern hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia (, causing the Paleo-Tethys to shrink. A new ocean was growing on its southern end, the Tethys Ocean The Tethys Ocean was an ocean that existed between the continents of Gondwana and Laurasia during the Mesozoic era before the opening of the Indian Ocean, an ocean that would dominate much of the Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is a period from about 250 million years ago to about 67 million years ago. It is called the Age of Dinosaurs because most dinosaurs developed, and went extinct, during that time. The Chicxulub impact and other events ended the era when a majority of species on earth went extinct Era. Large continental landmasses create climates with extreme variations of heat and cold ("continental climate Continental climate is a climate that is characterized by winter temperatures cold enough to support a fixed period of snow each year, and relatively moderate precipitation occurring mostly in summer, although east coast areas may show an even distribution of precipitation. Regions containing a continental climate exist in portions of the Northern") and monsoon Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by seasonal changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea. Usually, the term monsoon is used to refer to the rainy phase of a seasonally-changing conditions with highly seasonal rainfall patterns. Deserts A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than 250 millimetres per year, or as areas where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation. In the Köppen seem to have been widespread on Pangaea. Such dry conditions favored gymnosperms Once an authoritative and major classification level in the plant kingdom, the gymnosperms form today a rather heterogeneous group of seed-bearing plants that includes conifers, cycads, Ginkgo and Gnetales. The term "gymnosperm" comes from the Greek word gymnospermos , meaning "naked seeds", after the unenclosed condition of, plants with seeds enclosed in a protective cover, over plants such as ferns A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants. Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem . They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants. Ferns do not have either seeds or flowers (they reproduce via spores) that disperse spores In biology, a spore is a reproductive structure that is adapted for dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many bacteria, plants, algae, fungi and some protozoans. A chief difference between spores and seeds as dispersal units is that spores have very little stored. The first modern trees (conifers The conifers, division Pinophyta, also known as division Coniferophyta or Coniferae, are one of 13 or 14 division level taxa within the Kingdom Plantae. Pinophytes are gymnosperms. They are cone-bearing seed plants with vascular tissue; all extant conifers are woody plants, the great majority being trees with just a few being shrubs. Typical, ginkgos Ginkgo is a genus of highly unusual non-flowering plants with one extant species, G. biloba, which is regarded as a living fossil and cycads Cycads are seed plants characterized by a large crown of compound leaves and a stout trunk. They are evergreen, dioecious plants having large pinnately compound leaves. They are frequently confused with and mistaken for palms or ferns, but are only distantly related to both, and instead belong to the division Cycadophyta) appeared in the Permian.

Three general areas are especially noted for their extensive Permian deposits - the Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. The mountains lie within the Ural geographical region and significantly (where Perm itself is located), China, and the southwest of North America, where the Permian Basin The Permian Basin is a sedimentary basin largely contained in the western part of the U.S. state of Texas and the southeastern part of the state of New Mexico. It reaches from just south of Lubbock, Texas, to just south of Midland & Odessa, extending westward into the southeastern part of the adjacent state of New Mexico. It is so named in the U.S. ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language state of Texas Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the United States, while San Antonio is the second largest in the state and seventh largest in the United States. Dallas–Fort Worth and Greater Houston are the fourth and sixth largest United States metropolitan areas, respectively. Other major cities include El Paso and Austin—the is so named because it has one of the thickest deposits of Permian rocks in the world.

Climate

The climate Climates encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time. Climate can be contrasted to weather, which is the present condition of these same elements and their variations over periods up to two weeks in the Permian was quite varied. At the start of the Permian, the Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the World, the Blue Planet,[note 6] or by its Latin name, Terra.[note 7] was still at the grip of an Ice Age An "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of extra cold climate are termed & from the Carboniferous The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Ma , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Ma (ICS, 2004,. Glaciers receded around the mid-Permian period as the climate gradually warmed, drying the continent's interiors[10]. In the late Permian period, the drying continued although the temperature cycled between warm and cool cycles.[10]

Life

Dimetrodon Dimetrodon was a predatory synapsid genus that flourished during the Permian period, living between 280–265 million years ago (Artinskian to Capitanian stages). It was more closely related to mammals than to true reptiles such as lizards. It is classified as a pelycosaur. Fossils of Dimetrodon have been found in North America and Europe and Eryops- Early Permian, North America Ocher fauna - Early Middle Permian, Ural Region Titanophoneus and Ulemosaurus - Ural Region

Marine biota

Permian marine deposits are rich in fossil Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how mollusks The Mollusca, common name molluscs or mollusks,[note 1] is a large phylum of invertebrate animals. There are around 85,000 recognized extant species of molluscs. This is the largest marine phylum, comprising about 23% of all the named marine organisms. Numerous molluscs also live in freshwater and terrestrial habitats. Molluscs are highly diverse,, echinoderms Echinoderms are a phylum of marine animals. Echinoderms are found at every ocean depth, from the intertidal zone to the abyssal zone. Aside from the problematic Arkarua, the first definitive members of the phylum appeared near the start of the Cambrian period, and brachiopods Brachiopods are a phylum of marine animals that have hard "valves" on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs (such as scallops, clams, oysters and mussels). Most species of brachiopod went extinct during the P-Tr Extinction 250 million years ago, but many survive today. Fossilized shells of two kinds of invertebrates An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 95% of all animal species — all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata are widely used to identify Permian strata and correlate them between sites: fusulinids, a kind of shelled amoeba-like protist Protists are a diverse group of eukaryotic microorganisms. which include mostly unicellular organisms that do not fit into the other kingdoms. Historically, protists were treated as the kingdom Protista, which includes mostly unicellular organisms that do not fit into the other kingdoms, but this group is contested in modern taxonomy. Instead, it that is one of the foraminiferans, and ammonoids, shelled cephalopods that are distant relatives of the modern nautilus. By the close of the Permian, trilobites and a host of other marine groups became extinct.

Terrestrial biota

Edaphosaurus pogonias and Platyhystrix - Early Permian

Terrestrial life in the Permian included diverse plants, fungi, arthropods, and various types of tetrapods. The period saw a massive desert covering the interior of the Pangaea. The warm zone spread in the northern hemisphere, where extensive dry desert appeared. The rocks formed at that time were stained red by iron oxides, the result of intense heating by the sun of a surface devoid of vegetation cover. A number of older types of plants and animals died out or became marginal elements.

The Permian began with the Carboniferous flora still flourishing. About the middle of the Permian a major transition in vegetation began. The swamp-loving lycopod trees of the Carboniferous, such as Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, were progressively replaced in the continental interior by the more advanced seed ferns and early conifers. At the close of the Permian, lycopod and equicete swamps reminiscent of Carboniferous flora was relegated to a series of equatorial islands in the Paleotethys Sea that later would become the South China.[11]

The Permian saw the radiation of many important conifer groups, including the ancestors of many present-day families. Rich forests were present in many areas, with a diverse mix of plant groups. The southern continent saw extensive seed fern forests of the Glossopteris flora. Oxygen levels were probably high there. The ginkgos and cycads also appeared during this period.

Insects of the Permian

By the Pennsylvanian and well into the Permian, by far the most successful were primitive relatives of cockroaches. Six fast legs, two well developed folding wings, fairly good eyes, long, well developed antennae (olfactory), an omnivorous digestive system, a receptacle for storing sperm, a chitin skeleton that could support and protect, as well as form of gizzard and efficient mouth parts, gave it formidable advantages over other herbivorous animals. About 90% of insects were cockroach-like insects ("Blattopterans").[12]

The dragonflies Odonata were the dominant aerial predator and probably dominated terrestrial insect predation as well. True Odonata appeared in the Permian[13][14] and all are amphibious. Their prototypes are the oldest winged fossils,[15] go back to the Devonian, and are different from other wings in every way.[16] Their prototypes may have had the beginnings of many modern attributes even by late Carboniferous and it is possible that they even captured small vertebrates, for some species had a wing span of 71 cm.[17] A number of important new insect groups appeared at this time, including the Coleoptera (beetles) and Diptera (flies).

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