Abstract
The assemblage of lagenide foraminifers in uppermost Permian rocks of the central Taurides consists of 22 species in 16 genera, including the new species Rectostipulina pentamerata, plus additional unidentified elements. Of these, only two identifiable species in “Nodosaria” and indeterminate syzraniids survived the end-Permian mass extinction. The last occurrences of most taxa fall within the upper half-meter of the Permian System, a pattern consistent with abrupt extinction when tested for the Signor-Lipps effect. Permian survivors are joined locally in the Lower Triassic and lower Middle Triassic by three additional species. Globally, lagenide species diversity remained low until latest Anisian time, and probably did not reach pre-extinction levels until Late Triassic or Early Jurassic time. The survival of the lagenide clade, in contrast to the complete elimination of fusulinoidean fusulinides, may be linked to the lagenides' comparatively greater paleoenvironmental tolerances and wider paleogeographic distribution. Evaluation of lagenide extinction and survival across the Permian–Triassic boundary in the central Taurides is complicated by a facies change from bioclastic wackestones and packstones to oolitic grainstones near the top of the Permian, and by the development of variably dolomitized and pyritic stromatolites and overlying oolites in the lowest Triassic. The stromatolitic and oolitic Lower Triassic lithologies represent a sedimentologic response to the end-Permian mass extinction and unusual Early Triassic marine environments. Stromatolites likely became established as disaster forms in an ecologically permissive period that lacked normal marine grazing and bioturbating benthos. Their calcification and preservation may have been promoted by high carbonate saturation levels. Oolites, which are found in recurring facies associations with stromatolites and other anachronistic carbonates in Lower Triassic rocks throughout the Tethyan embayment, probably also formed in response to elevated saturation levels and the absence of a skeletal sink for carbonate.
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