THE GREAT DYING

Life on earth today is decendent from the 4% of species that remained after this catastrophic event. 

As a result of the events of The Great Dying, the course of life on earth was altered dramatically:

• an extreme reversal of the seasons
• poisoning of the atmosphere
• suffocation of life on land and in the ocean
• the collpase of entire food chains
• starvation 

Life on earth was almost wiped out forever. What little that survived didn't do so for very long.

The whole course of life on earth shifted forever. Beginning at The Siberian Traps, thousands of square miles of lava burst through layers of coal and spewed out toxic gasses like a giant exhaust pipe from the centre of the planet.

The planet cooked - then rapidly froze. The ocean heated up, releasing toxic methane buried deep in its sediment. These poisonous gases pillaged the oxygen and finally dumped carbon dioxide into the ocean. 

The following over-acidification of the seas was the kiss of death for the remaining life in the ocean. It is the closest life has ever come to being wiped from the face of the earth forever.

After The GREAT DYING, it was absolutely not the strongest who survived. It was the most opportunistic, the most adaptive and ecologically tolerant species who bounced back. 

Known as disaster taxa, these tolerent species adapted faster and evolved intricate strategies for survival. They filled the empty spaces in the evolutionary gaps.

The Horseshoe Crab for example tolerates very low

levels of oxygen to survive in habitats of fluctuating salinity. Its blue blood coagulates when it encounters bacteria. It is a true survivor from the land that time forgot.

Another among the reptile species that survived The Great Dying is the recently discovered resilient Teyujagua Lizard. This 250 year old fossil of a dinosaur relative is also called the 'Fierce Lizard'.

Another distinct group who adapted quickly was known as the therapsids. Examining their bone microstructure before and after extinction a team of palentologists found the genus Lystrosaurus evolved remarkable strategies on how to survive extinction.  These included reducing its physical size and breeding younger increasing its lifespan by up to  40%.

Biologist Dr. Peter Ward suggests that while crocidilians and mammals merely survived in the post great dying world, dinosaurs survived the major mass extinction. They emerged, and even evolved. They adapted with a unique air-sac system we call 'bird-lungs' in response to the oxygen depleted air of 12% - 16%.

OCEAN ANOXIA

The overall recovery however was first thought to have been a painfully slow process. 

The planet's oceans were so incredibly starved of oxygen. Also abundant soil run-off into oceans as a result of the lack of plant life caused further delay.

Massive algae blooms were the result, starving the oceans beneath of precious oxygen. And this lack of oxygen was thought to dramatically slowed the rate of recovery. (However scientists also believe that the varying evels of oxygen at different depths supported more diverse forms of life.)

Their findings recently published have suggested that widespread ocean anoxia caused oxygen levels to take nearly 5 million years to return to normal levels. "Explaining the 5-million-year delay in the Earth system's recovery to pre-extinction conditions after the Permian extinction has been a challenge," said Kimberly Lau, a PhD candidate in geological sciences at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. 

2017 GREAT DYING STUDY

A new haul of diverse fossils in Idaho has caused a dramatic re-think. According to a recent discovery at the Paris Biota site, life recovered more quickly than we thought.

Lead Patentologist Daniel Stephen from Utah Valley University said: "The information that my colleagues and I have gathered tell us that at least in some places the recovery was relatively rapid."

THE RECOVERY ON LAND

Unsurprisingly recovery on land was characterised by a tremendous fungal spike. Fungi and microbes recycle dead matter and return their nutrients to the eco system. This creates fantastic symbiotic relationships with plants and acts as vast extensions to plants’ root systems. 

Fungi today have been discovered to play a significant role in both the clean-up and detoxification of toxins and poisons on the planet.