Microbialites in the Permian-Triassic boundary interval in Central China: Structure, age and distribution

A carbonate crust, with a principally digitate structure, caps latest Permian reef complexes in east Sichuan, China. The crust contains the conodont Hindeodus parvus, confirming its age as earliest Triassic; it therefore closely postdates the end-Permian mass extinction, and is related to associated palaeoenvironmental change. Although its branches have lobate margins, and internal structures of radial fabrics and lobate fabrics in different specimens, an organic origin cannot be confirmed, because crust fabric is largely recrystallised. Therefore we apply the term ?microbialite to reflect uncertainty of its nature. The crust is co-eval (within the parvus Zone) with confirmed microbial biostromes and mounds in Guizhou Province, south of Sichuan. The sum of evidence, assembled by workers in several sites worldwide, indicates a sea-level rise occurred in the boundary interval, and this is corroborated by facies of the Sichuan crust. Abrupt appearance and disappearance of the crust, formed by precipitated carbonates, in east Sichuan, represents short-lived unusual post-extinction marine conditions which were switched abruptly on, then off. Microbial deposits overlying the P/T boundary in other locations in the Tethys Ocean (Iran and Japan) support the view that the unusual oceanic conditons had at least a regional distribution. Because the crust abruptly terminates, and is not succeeded by fossil-rich deposits, application of the disaster biota concept is inappropriate; an environmentally-driven control on carbonate precipitation is better supported by the evidence, whether or not it was biotically-mediated.