Triassic Period

Interval of geologic time, с 248–206 million years ago, that marks the beginning of the Mesozoic Era.

Many new vertebrates emerged during the Triassic, heralding the major changes that were to occur in both terrestrial and marine life forms during the Mesozoic Era. The seas became inhabited by large marine reptiles. On land, ancestral forms of various modern amphibians arose, as did reptiles such as turtles and crocodilians. By the Late Triassic, archosaurs were becoming more and more dominant, and the first true mammals, small shrewlike omnivores, evolved. Seed ferns dominated the flora of southern Gondwana, and gymnosperms, including conifers, cycads, and ginkgos, were common throughout much of Pangea.

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▪ geochronology

Introduction

 in geologic time, the first period of the Mesozoic Era. It began 251 million years ago, at the close of the Permian Period, and ended 199.6 million years ago, when it was succeeded by the Jurassic Period.

      The Triassic Period marked the beginning of major changes that were to take place throughout the Mesozoic Era, particularly in the distribution of continents, the evolution of life, and the geographic distribution of living things. At the beginning of the Triassic, virtually all the major landmasses of the world were collected into the supercontinent of Pangea. Terrestrial climates were predominately warm and dry (though seasonal monsoons occurred over large areas), and the Earth's crust was relatively quiescent. At the end of the Triassic, however, plate tectonic (plate tectonics) activity picked up, and a period of continental rifting began. On the margins of the continents, shallow seas, which had dwindled in area at the end of the Permian, became more extensive; as sea levels gradually rose, the waters of continental shelves were colonized for the first time by large marine reptiles and reef-building corals of modern aspect.

 The Triassic followed on the heels of the largest mass extinction in the history of the Earth. This event occurred at the end of the Permian, when 85 to 95 percent of marine invertebrate species and 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate genera died out. During the recovery of life in the Triassic Period, the relative importance of land animals grew. Reptiles increased in diversity and number, and the first dinosaurs appeared, heralding the great radiation that would characterize this group during the Jurassic and Cretaceous (Cretaceous Period) periods. Finally, the end of the Triassic saw the appearance of the first mammals—tiny, fur-bearing, shrewlike animals derived from reptiles.

      Another episode of mass extinction occurred at the end of the Triassic. Though this event was less devastating than its counterpart at the end of the Permian, it did result in drastic reductions of some living populations—particularly of the ammonoids (ammonoid), primitive mollusks that have served as important index fossils (index fossil) for assigning relative ages to various strata in the Triassic System of rocks.

      The name Trias (later modified to Triassic) was first proposed in 1834 by the German paleontologist Friedrich August von Alberti for a sequence of rock strata in central Germany that lay above Permian rocks and below Jurassic rocks. (The name Trias referred to the division of these strata into three units: the Bunter [or Buntsandstein], Muschelkalk, and Keuper.) Alberti's rock sequence, which became known as the “Germanic facies,” had many drawbacks as a standard for assigning relative ages to Triassic rocks from other regions of the world, and so for much of the 19th and 20th centuries Triassic stages were based mainly on type sections from the “Alpine facies” in Austria, Switzerland, and northern Italy. Since the mid-20th century more complete sequences have been discovered in North America, and these now serve as the standard for Triassic time in general. Meanwhile, studies of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics have yielded important new information on the paleogeography and paleoclimatology of the Triassic, allowing for a better understanding of the evolution and extinction of life-forms and of the paleoecology and paleobiogeography of the period. In addition, paleontologists continue to be occupied with defining the lower and upper boundaries of the Triassic System on a worldwide basis and with understanding the reasons for the mass extinctions that took place at those boundaries.

The Triassic environment

paleogeography

 At the beginning of the Triassic Period, the present continents (continent) of the world were grouped together into one large C-shaped supercontinent named Pangea (see the map—>). Covering about one-quarter of the Earth's surface, Pangea stretched from 85° N to 90° S in a narrow belt of about 60° of longitude. It consisted of a group of northern continents collectively referred to as Laurasia and a group of southern continents collectively referred to as Gondwana. The rest of the globe was covered by Panthalassa, an enormous world ocean that stretched from pole to pole and extended to about twice the width of the present-day Pacific Ocean at the Equator. Scattered across Panthalassa within 30° of the Triassic Equator were islands, seamounts (seamount), and volcanic archipelagoes, some associated with deposits of reef carbonates (coral) now found in western North America and other locations.

      Projecting westward between Gondwana and Laurasia along an east-west axis approximately coincident with the present-day Mediterranean Sea was a deep embayment of Panthalassa known as the Tethys (Tethys Sea) Sea. This ancient seaway was later to extend farther westward to Gibraltar as rifting (rift valley) between Laurasia and Gondwana began in the Late Triassic. Eventually, by Middle to Late Jurassic times, it would link up with the eastern side of Panthalassa, effectively separating the two halves of the Pangea supercontinent. Paleogeographers reconstruct these continental configurations using evidence from many sources, the most important of which are paleomagnetic data and correspondences between continental margins in shape, rock types, orogenic (orogeny) (mountain-building) events, and distribution of fossilized plants and land vertebrates that lived prior to the breakup of Pangea. In addition, the apparent polar-wandering curves (plate tectonics) (plots of the apparent movement of the Earth's magnetic poles with respect to the continents through time) for modern-day Africa and North America converge between the Carboniferous (Carboniferous Period) and Triassic periods and then begin to diverge in the Late Triassic, which indicates the exact time when the two continents began to separate and the Tethys Sea began to open up.

      Thick sequences of clastic sediments accumulated in marginal troughs bordering the present-day circum-Pacific region as well as the northern and southern margins of the Tethys, while shelf seas occupied parts of the Tethyan, circum-Pacific, and circum-Arctic regions but were otherwise restricted in distribution. Much of the circum-Pacific region and the northeastern part of Tethys were bordered by active (that is, convergent) plate margins, but the northwestern and southern margins of Tethys were passive (that is, divergent) during the Triassic. At the end of the Triassic, increased tectonic activity contributed to rising sea levels and an increase in the extent of shallow continental shelf seas.

      Along the western margin of modern North America, a major subduction zone was present where the eastward-moving oceanic plate of eastern Panthalassa slid under the continental plate of Pangea. The Panthalassa plate carried fragments of island arcs (island arc) and microcontinents that, because of their lesser density, could not be subducted along with the oceanic plate. As these fragments reached the subduction zone, they were sutured onto the Cordilleran belt of North America, forming what geologists refer to as allochthonous terranes (fragments of crust displaced from their site of origin). This process of “accretionary tectonics” (or obduction) created more than 50 terranes of various ages in the Cordilleran region, including the Sonomia and Golconda terranes of the northwestern United States, both of which were accreted in the Early Triassic. The former microcontinent of Sonomia occupies what is now southeastern Oregon and northern California and Nevada.

Paleoclimate

      Worldwide climatic conditions during the Triassic seem to have been much more homogeneous than at present. No polar ice existed. Temperature differences between the Equator and the poles would have been less extreme than they are today, which would have resulted in less diversity in biological habitats.

      Beginning in the Late Permian and continuing into the Early Triassic, the emergence of the supercontinent Pangea and the associated reduction in the total area covered by continental shelf seas led to widespread aridity over most land areas. Judging from modern conditions, a single large landmass such as Pangea would be expected to experience an extreme, strongly seasonal continental climate (paleoclimatology) with hot summers and cold winters. Yet the paleoclimatic evidence is conflicting. There are several indicators of an arid climate, including the following: red sandstones (sandstone) and shales (shale) that contain few fossils, lithified dune deposits with cross-bedding, salt pseudomorphs (pseudomorph) in marls (marl), mudcracks, and evaporites (evaporite). On the other hand, there is evidence for strong seasonal precipitation, including braided fluvial (riverine) sediments (river), clay-rich deltaic (delta) deposits, and red beds of alluvial and fluvial origin. This dilemma is best resolved by postulating a monsoonal (monsoon) climate, particularly during the Middle and Late Triassic, over wide areas of Pangea. Under these conditions, cross-equatorial monsoonal winds would have brought strong seasonal precipitation to some areas, especially where these winds crossed large expanses of open water.

      Another indication of temperate and tropical climates is coal deposits. Their presence invariably indicates humid conditions with relatively high rainfall responsible for both lush vegetational growth and poor drainage. The resultant large swamps would act as depositional basins wherein the decomposing plant material would be transformed gradually into peat. Such humid conditions must have existed in high latitudes during the later stages of the Triassic Period, on the basis of the occurrence of coals in Triassic formations in Arctic Canada, Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan, South America, South Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.

 It has been postulated that, because of the large size of Panthalassa, oceanic circulation patterns during the Triassic would have been relatively simple, consisting of enormous single gyres in each hemisphere (see the map—>). East-west temperature extremes would have been great, with the western margin of Panthalassa being much warmer than the eastern. A permanent westerly equatorial current would have provided warm waters to Tethys, enabling reefs to develop there wherever substrates and depths were favourable.

      Additional important evidence regarding paleoclimate is provided by the nature of Triassic fossils and their latitudinal distribution. The biotas of the period are fairly modern in aspect, and so their life habits and environmental requirements can be reconstructed with relative confidence from comparisons to living relatives. For example, the presence of colonial stony corals as framework builders in Tethyan reefs of Late Triassic age suggests an environment of warm shelf seas at low latitudes. These seas must have been sufficiently shallow and clear to allow penetration of adequate light for photosynthesis by zooxanthellae (zooxanthella), a type of protozoa inferred to be, perhaps for the first time in geologic history, symbiotically associated with reef-building corals and aiding in their calcification.

      The geographic distribution of modern-day animals indicates, with few exceptions, that faunal diversity decreases steadily in both hemispheres as one approaches the poles. For example, ectothermic (cold-blooded) amphibians (amphibian) and reptiles (reptile) show a much higher diversity in the warmer low latitudes, reflecting the strong influence of ambient air temperatures on these animals, which are unable to regulate their internal temperature. The evidence from Triassic fossils, however, is equivocal: the distribution of Triassic amphibians and reptiles shows only a slight change with latitude, although the distribution of ammonoids (a primitive mollusk) from the upper part of the Lower Triassic shows a much stronger geographic gradient. It may be that Triassic marine invertebrates were more sensitive to differences in ambient temperature than land vertebrates or that ambient temperature differences were greater in the ocean than on land. There is also the possibility that both these conditions existed.

Triassic life

      The boundary between the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras was marked by the Earth's third and largest mass extinction episode, which occurred immediately prior to the Triassic. As a result, Early Triassic biotas were impoverished, though diversity and abundance progressively increased during Middle and Late Triassic times. The fossils of many Early Triassic life-forms tend to be Paleozoic in aspect, whereas those of the Middle and Late Triassic are decidedly Mesozoic in appearance and are clearly the precursors of things to come. New land vertebrates appeared throughout the Triassic. By the end of the period, both the first true mammals and the earliest dinosaurs had appeared.

Mass extinctions

      Periodic large-scale mass extinctions have occurred throughout the history of life; indeed, it is on this basis that the geologic eras were first established. Of the five major mass extinction events, the one best known is the last, which took place at the end of the Cretaceous Period and killed the dinosaurs. However, the largest of all extinction events occurred between the Permian (Permian Period) and Triassic periods at the end of the Paleozoic (Paleozoic Era) Era, and it is this third mass extinction that profoundly affected life during the Triassic. The fourth episode of mass extinction occurred at the end of the Triassic, drastically reducing some marine and terrestrial groups, such as ammonoids (ammonoid), mammal-like reptiles, and primitive amphibians, but not affecting others.

Permian-Triassic extinctions

      Though the Permian-Triassic mass extinction was the most extensive in the history of life on Earth, it should be noted that many groups were showing evidence of a gradual decline long before the end of the Paleozoic. Nevertheless, 85 to 95 percent of marine invertebrate species became extinct at the end of the Permian. On land, four-legged vertebrates and plants suffered significant reductions in diversity across the Permian-Triassic boundary. Only 30 percent of terrestrial vertebrate genera survived into the Triassic.

      Many possible causes have been advanced to account for these extinctions. Some researchers believe that there is a periodicity to mass extinctions, which suggests a common, perhaps astronomical, cause. Others maintain that each extinction event is unique in itself. Cataclysmic events, such as intense volcanic activity and the impact of a celestial body, or more gradual trends, such as changes in sea levels, oceanic temperature, salinity, or nutrients, fluctuations in oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, climatic cooling, and cosmic radiation, have been proposed to explain the Permian-Triassic crisis. Unlike the end-Cretaceous event, there is no consistent evidence in rocks at the Permian-Triassic boundary to support an asteroid impact hypothesis, such as an anomalous presence of iridium and associated shocked quartz (quartz grains that have experienced high temperatures and pressures from impact shock). A more plausible theory is suggested by finely laminated pyritic (pyrite) shales, rich in organic carbon, that are commonly found at the Permian-Triassic transition in many areas. These shales may reflect oceanic anoxia (lack of dissolved oxygen) in both low and high latitudes over a wide range of shelf depths, perhaps caused by weakening of oceanic circulation. Such anoxia could devastate marine life, particularly the bottom-dwellers (benthos). Any theory, however, must take into account that not all groups were affected to the same extent by the extinctions.

      The trilobites (trilobite), a group of arthropods long past their zenith, made their last appearance in the Permian, as did the closely related eurypterids (eurypterid). Rugose and tabulate corals (coral) became extinct at the end of the Paleozoic. Several superfamilies of Paleozoic brachiopods (lamp shells), such as the productaceans, chonetaceans, and richthofeniaceans, also disappeared at the end of the Permian. Fusulinid foraminiferans (foraminiferan), useful as late Paleozoic index fossils (index fossil), did not survive the crisis, nor did the cryptostomate and fenestrate bryozoans (moss animal), which inhabited many Carboniferous and Permian reefs. Gone also were the blastoids (blastoid), a group of echinoderms (echinoderm) that persisted in what is now Indonesia until the end of the Permian, although their decline had begun much earlier in other regions. However, some groups, such as the conodonts (conodont) (a type of tiny marine invertebrate), were little affected by this crisis in the history of life, although they were destined to disappear at the end of the Triassic.

End-Triassic extinctions

      The end-Triassic mass extinction was less devastating than its counterpart at the end of the Permian. Nevertheless, in the marine realm some groups such as the conodonts became extinct, while many Triassic ceratitid ammonoids disappeared. Only the phylloceratid ammonoids were able to survive, and they gave rise to the explosive radiation of cephalopods (cephalopod) later in the Jurassic. Many families of brachiopods, gastropods, bivalves, and marine reptiles also became extinct. On land a great part of the vertebrate fauna disappeared at the end of the Triassic, although the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, crocodiles, turtles, mammals, and fishes were little affected by the transition. Plant fossils and palynomorphs (spores and pollen of plants) show no significant changes in diversity across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. Sea-level changes and associated anoxia, coupled with climatic change, were the most likely causes for the end-Triassic extinction.

Invertebrates (invertebrate)

      The difference between Permian and Triassic faunas is most noticeable among the marine invertebrates. At the Permian-Triassic boundary the number of families was reduced by half, with an estimated 85 to 95 percent of all species disappearing.

      Ammonoids (ammonoid) were common in the Permian but suffered drastic reduction at the end of that period. Only a few genera belonging to the prolecanitid group survived the crisis, but their descendants, the ceratitids, provided the rootstock for an explosive adaptive radiation in the Middle and Late Triassic. Ammonoid shells have a complex suture line where internal partitions join the outer shell wall. Ceratitids have varying external ornamentation, but all share the distinctive ceratitic internal suture line of rounded saddles and denticulate lobes, as shown by such Early Triassic genera as Otoceras and Ophiceras. The group first reached its acme and then declined dramatically in the Late Triassic. In the Carnian Stage (the first stage of the Late Triassic) there were more than 150 ceratitid genera; in the next stage, the Norian, there were fewer than 100, and finally in the Rhaetian Stage there were fewer than 10. In the Late Triassic evolved bizarre heteromorphs with loosely coiled body chambers, such as Choristoceras, or with helically coiled whorls, such as Cochloceras. These aberrant forms were short-lived, however. A small group of smooth-shelled forms with more complex suture lines, the phylloceratids, also arose in the Early Triassic. They are regarded as the earliest true ammonites and gave rise to all post-Triassic ammonites, even though Triassic ammonoids as a whole almost became extinct at the end of the period.

 Other marine invertebrate fossils found in Triassic rocks, albeit much reduced in diversity compared with those of the Permian, include gastropods (gastropod), bivalves (bivalve), brachiopods (lamp shells), bryozoans (moss animal), corals (coral), foraminiferans (foraminiferan), and echinoderms (echinoderm). These groups are either poorly represented or absent in Lower Triassic rocks but increase in importance later in the period. Most are bottom-dwellers (benthos), but the bivalve genera Claraia, Posidonia, Daonella, Halobia, and Monotis, often used as Triassic index fossils (index fossil), were planktonic (plankton) and may have achieved widespread distribution by being attached to floating seaweed. Colonial stony corals became important reef-builders in the Middle and Late Triassic. For example, the Rhaetian Dachstein reefs from Austria were colonized by a diverse fauna of colonial corals and calcareous sponges (sponge), with subsidiary calcareous algae, echinoids, foraminiferans, and other colonial invertebrates. Many successful Paleozoic articulate brachiopod (lamp shells) superfamilies (those having valves characterized by teeth and sockets) became extinct at the end of the Permian, which left only the spiriferaceans, rhynchonellaceans, terebratulaceans, terebratellaceans, thecideaceans, and some other less important groups to continue into the Mesozoic. The brachiopods, however, never again achieved the dominance they held among the benthos of the Paleozoic, and they may have suffered competitively from the adaptive radiation of the bivalves in the Mesozoic.

      Fossil echinoderms (echinoderm) are represented in the Triassic by crinoid columnals and the echinoid Miocidaris, a holdover from the Permian. The crinoids had begun to decline long before the end of the Permian, by which time they were almost entirely decimated, with both the flexible and camerate varieties dying out. The inadunates survived the crisis; they did not become extinct until the end of the Triassic and gave rise to the articulates, which still exist today.

Vertebrates (vertebrate)

Fishes and marine reptiles

      Vertebrate animals appear to have been less affected by the Permian-Triassic crisis than were invertebrates. The fishes show some decline in diversity and abundance at the end of the Paleozoic, with acanthodians (spiny sharks (spiny shark)) becoming extinct and elasmobranchs (primitive sharks and rays) much reduced in diversity. Actinopterygians (ray-finned fishes), however, continued to flourish during the Triassic, gradually moving from freshwater to marine environments, which were already inhabited by subholostean ray-finned fishes (genera intermediate between palaeoniscoids and holosteans). The shellfish-eating hybodont sharks, already diversified by the end of the Permian, continued into the Triassic.

      Fossils of marine reptiles (reptile) such as the shell-crushing placodonts (which superficially resembled turtles) and the fish-eating nothosaurs (Nothosaurus) occur in the Muschelkalk, a rock formation of Triassic marine sediments in central Germany. The nothosaurs, members of the sauropterygian order, did not survive the Triassic, but they were ancestors of the large predatory plesiosaurs (plesiosaur) of the Jurassic. The largest inhabitants of Triassic seas were the early ichthyosaurs (ichthyosaur), superficially like dolphins in profile and streamlined for rapid swimming. These efficient hunters, which were equipped with powerful fins, paddle-like limbs, a long-toothed jaw, and large eyes, may have preyed upon some of the early squidlike cephalopods (cephalopod) known as belemnites. There also is evidence that these unusual reptiles gave birth to live young.

Terrestrial reptiles and the first mammals

      On land the vertebrates are represented in the Triassic by labyrinthodont amphibians (amphibian) and reptiles, the latter consisting of cotylosaurs, therapsids (therapsid), eosuchians, thecodontians (thecodontian), and protorosaurs. All these tetrapod groups suffered a sharp reduction in diversity at the close of the Permian; 75 percent of the early amphibian families and 80 percent of the early reptilian families disappeared at or near the Permian-Triassic boundary. Whereas Early Triassic forms were still Paleozoic in aspect, new forms appeared throughout the period, and by Late Triassic times the tetrapod fauna was distinctly Mesozoic in aspect. Modern groups whose ancestral forms appeared for the first time in the Middle and Late Triassic include lizards, turtles, rhynchocephalians (lizardlike animals), and crocodilians.

      The mammal-like reptiles, or therapsids (therapsid), suffered pulses of extinctions in the Late Permian. The group survived the boundary crisis but became virtually extinct by the end of the Triassic, possibly because of competition from more efficient predators, such as the thecodonts. The first true mammals (mammal), which were very small, appeared in the Late Triassic (the shrewlike Morganucodon, for example). Although their fossilized remains have been collected from a bone bed in Great Britain dating from the Rhaetian Stage at the end of the Triassic, the evolutionary transition from therapsid reptiles to mammals at the close of the Triassic is nowhere clearly demonstrated by well-preserved fossils.

The first dinosaurs

  First encountered in the Early Triassic, the thecodonts (thecodontian) became common during the Middle Triassic but disappeared before the beginning of the Jurassic. Typical of this group of archosaurs (archosaur) (or “ruling reptiles”) in the Triassic were small bipedal forms belonging to the pseudosuchians. Forms such as Lagosuchus were swift-running predators that had erect limbs directly under the body, which made them more mobile and agile. This group presumably gave rise to primitive dinosaurs (dinosaur) belonging to the saurischian and ornithischian orders during the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic. The early dinosaurs were bipedal, swift-moving, and relatively small compared with later Mesozoic forms, but some, such as Plateosaurus (see the figure—>), reached lengths of 8 metres (26 feet). Coelophysis (see the figure—>) was a Late Triassic carnivorous dinosaur about 2 metres (6 to 8 feet) long; its fossils have been found in the Chinle Formation in the Petrified Forest National Park of northeastern Arizona in the United States. The dinosaur group was to achieve much greater importance later in the Mesozoic, resulting in the era being informally called the “Age of Reptiles.”

Flying reptiles

      Some of the earliest lizards (lizard) may have been the first vertebrates to take to the air. Gliding lizards, such as the small Late Triassic Icarosaurus, are thought to have developed an airfoil from skin stretched between extended ribs, which would have allowed short glides similar to those made by present-day flying squirrels. Similarly, Longisquama had long scales that could have been employed as primitive wings, while the Late Triassic Sharovipteryx was an active flyer and may have been the first true pterosaur (flying reptile). All these forms became extinct at the end of the Triassic, their role as fliers being taken over by the later pterosaurs of the Jurassic and Cretaceous.

Plants (plant)

      Land plants were affected by the Permian-Triassic crisis, but less so than were the animals, since the demise of late Paleozoic floras had begun much earlier. The dominant understory plants in the Triassic were the ferns, while most middle-story plants were gymnosperms (gymnosperm) (plants having exposed seeds)—the cycadeoids (Cycadeoidophyta) (an extinct order) and the still-extant cycads (cycad) and ginkgoes (ginkgo). The upper story of Triassic forests (coniferous forest) consisted of conifers; their best-known fossil remains are preserved in the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation.

      While extensive forests did exist during the Triassic, widespread aridity on the northern continents in the Early and Middle Triassic limited their areal extent, which resulted in generally poor development of floras during this period. However, in the Late Triassic the occurrence of water-loving plants, such as lycopods (vascular plants now represented only by the club mosses (club moss)), horsetails, and ferns, suggests that the arid climate changed to a more moist monsoonal one and that this climatic belt extended as high as latitude 60° Ν. Subtropical to warm-temperate Eurasian flora lay in a belt between about 15° and 60° N, while north of this belt were the temperate Siberian (Angaran) flora, extending to within 10° of the Triassic North Pole. In the southern continents the Permian Glossopteris and Gangamopteris seed fern flora, adapted to cool, moist conditions, were replaced by a Triassic flora dominated by Dicroidium, a seed fern that preferred warm, dry conditions—which indicates major climatic changes at the Permian-Triassic boundary. Dicroidium, a genus of the pteridosperm (gymnosperm) order, was part of an extensive Gondwanan paleoflora that was discovered in the Late Triassic Molteno Formation of southern Africa and elsewhere. This paleoflora extended from 30° to well below 60° S. Few fossil remains exist from the Triassic for the equatorial zone between 15° N and 30° S.

      In the oceans the coccolithophores, an important group of still-living marine pelagic algae, made their first appearance during the Late Triassic, while dinoflagellates (dinoflagellate) underwent rapid diversification during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. Dasycladacean marine green algae and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) were abundant throughout the Triassic.

Triassic geology

Significant geologic events

      The Triassic Period is characterized by few geologic events of major significance, in contrast to the subsequent periods of the Mesozoic Era (the Jurassic (Jurassic Period) and Cretaceous (Cretaceous Period) periods), when the supercontinent Pangea fragmented and the new Atlantic and Indian oceans opened up. The beginning of continental rifting in the Late Triassic, however, caused stretching of the crust in eastern North America along the Appalachian Mountain belt from the Carolinas to Nova Scotia, resulting in normal faulting in this region. There, grabens (fault-bounded basins) received thick clastic (rock fragment) sequences from the erosion of the nearby Appalachians, which were later intruded by igneous dikes and sills. In similar fault-controlled basins between Africa and Laurasia, evaporite deposits were formed in arid or semiarid environments as seawater from the Tethys Sea periodically spilled into these newly formed troughs and then evaporated, leaving behind its salts. Evaporites of Late Triassic and Early Jurassic age in Morocco and off eastern Canada were apparently deposited in such tectonically formed basins.

      Mountain building was restricted during the Triassic, with relatively minor orogenic activity taking place along the Pacific coastal margin of North America and in China and Japan. The unmetamorphosed nature of the Triassic rocks of the Newark Group, a rock sequence in eastern North America known for its dinosaur tracks and fossils of freshwater organisms, indicates that its sediments were deposited after the main phase of the Appalachian orogeny in the late Paleozoic.

Economic significance of Triassic deposits

      Few mineral deposits (mineral deposit) of major economic importance were formed during the Triassic. Workable coal deposits are known from Arctic Canada, Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan, Australia, and Antarctica. Oil and gas occurrences are not common, but potentially important gas reserves have been discovered in Triassic rocks of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. Halite (rock salt) is mined from Triassic evaporites in England, France, Germany, and Austria. Low-grade uranium ores such as carnotite occur in continental deposits of Triassic age in the western United States.

Major subdivisions of the Triassic System

 The Triassic Period is divided into three epochs: the Early Triassic (251 to 245 million years ago), the Middle Triassic (about 245 to 228 million years ago), and the Late Triassic (about 228 to 199.6 million years ago; see the Geologic Time Scale—>). The rocks (rock) (mostly of sedimentary origin) that define these time intervals make up the Triassic System, which is broken down into three series: Lower, Middle, and Upper. Each of these series is further subdivided into stages, substages, and biozones, mainly on the basis of vertical ranges of rapidly evolving biota, radiometric dates, and magnetic reversals on the seafloor and in the sedimentary rocks, where available. Subdividing time and rock units in this way allows more precise dating of geologic events and correlation of rocks between areas. However, because there are relatively few igneous rocks to provide reliable radiometric dates, the time spans and absolute ages cited by different investigators for the Triassic Period tend to vary. Such dates are subject to revision as new and more accurate age determinations are made.

      Early subdivision of the Triassic was based primarily on the extensive and highly fossiliferous Alpine (Alpine orogeny) (western Tethyan) sequence of marine strata exposed in Austria, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. It was there that the type sections, or stratotypes, for the Middle Triassic stages Anisian (Anisian Stage) and Ladinian (Ladinian Stage) and the Upper Triassic stages Carnian (Carnian Stage), Norian (Norian Stage), and Rhaetian (Rhaetian Stage) were first established. The two stages of the Lower Triassic, the Induan (Induan Stage) and Olenekian (Olenekian Stage), are based on stratotypes in the Salt Range of Pakistan and in Siberia, respectively. While these stage names are now generally accepted internationally, alternative names for part or all of the Triassic are used in Japan and New Zealand.

Occurrence and distribution of Triassic deposits

Marine deposits

      Major linear depositional troughs developed around Panthalassa, the ancestor of the Pacific Ocean, during the Early and Middle Triassic. Great quantities of marine sediments (marine sediment) collected in these troughs, as indicated by deposits—now mainly sandstones, shales, and graywackes—located in the western Pacific basinal belt (New Zealand and Japan) and the eastern basinal belt (Alaska, Arctic Canada, British Columbia, western United States, and the west coast of South America). For example, more than 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) of Triassic sediments accumulated in the Sverdrup Basin of Arctic Canada. The Tethys Sea, a deep, narrow arm of Panthalassa stretching along an east-west belt separating what is now Africa from southern Europe, also received basinal deposits.

      In the northern Tethyan trough, marine deposits now occur in the Alps, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and the Himalayas mainly as limestones, with deep-sea sediments such as those in radiolarian cherts, which formed in troughs in the deeper parts of the Tethys Sea. To the south was the southern Tethyan trough, bordering Gondwana and stretching from northern India through the Middle East to northern Africa. Shallow shelf-sea embayments of limited distribution occurred landward of these troughs and are represented mainly by limestones in low latitudes, as around the margins of the Tethys Sea. Such tropical and subtropical shelf seas were warm and often supported small reefs (coral reef), the forerunners of the more extensive coral reefs of today. Although the Permian-Triassic extinction of rugose and tabulate corals resulted in an absence of Lower Triassic corals, small reeflike mounds of early Middle Triassic age were succeeded later in Middle Triassic times by more extensive reef complexes that retained some Permian biotic elements. Such reefs have been described from the Tirolian Alps of Austria and the Dolomites of Italy. Late Triassic (Norian-Rhaetian) reef complexes, more modern in aspect and dominated for the first time by scleractinian (stony) corals and calcareous pharetronid sponges, occur as thick sequences in the Dachstein and Steinplatte regions of Austria and Germany, as well as in Iran and the Himalayas.

      In the circum-Pacific region some shelf-sea deposits, generally clastic in nature (sandstones and shales), occur in Western Australia, Siberia, and the circum-Arctic region, including Arctic Canada, Alaska, eastern Greenland, and Spitsbergen.

Continental deposits

      Continental sediments dominated by red beds (that is, sandstones and shales of red colour) and evaporites accumulated on land throughout the Triassic Period. The Bunter and the Keuper Marl of Germany and the New Red Sandstone of Britain are examples of such red beds north of Tethys, while to the south are similar deposits in India, Australia, South Africa, and Antarctica. Although deposits of this kind usually indicate accumulation in arid regions such as inland desert basins, the red beds may also represent sediments of fluvial or lacustrine origin suggestive of seasonal precipitation. Large basins containing Triassic continental sediments occur in South America (Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina) and in western North America (particularly in Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, and Colorado). In eastern North America great thicknesses of sedimentary rocks of continental origin were deposited during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic in a series of fault-bounded basins, of which the Newark Basin is probably the best-known. There rocks comprising the Newark Supergroup consist of sequences of continental red clastics with dinosaur tracks and mudcracks, along with black shales containing fossils of freshwater crustaceans and fish. These deposits indicate a depositional environment of rivers draining into freshwater lakes in a generally arid or semiarid region, which from paleomagnetic evidence appears to have been located about 20° north of the paleoequator.

Igneous rocks

      Triassic igneous rocks (igneous rock) are not common, and reliable radiometric dates are available only from Upper Triassic rocks. Examples of extrusive basalt flows are known from Australia, South America, and eastern North America. The well-known Palisades Sill of the Newark Supergroup was formerly regarded as Triassic in age, but this diabase intrusion, which is 300 metres (1,000 feet) thick, has yielded a potassium-argon age of 193 million years, indicating an Early Jurassic origin.

Correlation of Triassic strata

      Correlation is the technique of piecing together information from widely separated rock outcrops in order to create an accurate chronological profile of an entire geologic time period. In order to accomplish this, geologists attempt to measure the absolute ages of rock strata using techniques such as radioisotope dating, or they attempt to establish relative ages of strata by comparing their mineralogy, fossil content, and other attributes. The Triassic System is dominated by sedimentary rocks (sedimentary rock), which, unlike igneous rocks, generally do not yield reliable radiometric data, which are used to establish absolute age. Therefore, the relative ages of Triassic sedimentary rocks—derived from the techniques of superposition, lithology, and biochronology—must be used for correlation. Of these three tools, biochronology, the dating of rock strata according to the known succession of fossilized life-forms found within them, has traditionally been regarded as the most accurate and reliable, although more modern methods of sequence stratigraphy are improving the accuracy of interregional correlation.

Alpine strata

      While conodonts (conodont), palynomorphs (spores and pollen of plants), radiolarians (radiolarian), and tetrapods are now proving to be useful for correlation of marine and nonmarine strata from the Triassic, the most widely used fossils in biochronology are still those of the ammonoids (ammonoid). This is because these pelagic swimming or floating cephalopods fulfill the basic requirements for ideal zone fossils: they were widespread geographically, evolved rapidly, and were not dependent on any type of substrate. Ammonoids thrived in Triassic seas in offshore environments along with pelagic bivalves such as Claraia and Halobia. While ammonoids have been used successfully to erect a series of biozones (biozone), each one probably representing no more than one million years, the problem has been to find complete sequences of undisturbed marine strata that represent all stages of Triassic time in any one general region. Because the Germanic facies (the rock series originally proposed in the 19th century as representing the Triassic Period) are mostly of continental, not marine, origin, the marine Triassic of the Alps has traditionally been used as a standard for the period, with the two most important localities being Salzkammergut in the northern Austrian Alps and St. Cassian (now San Cassiano) in the Dolomites to the south. Unfortunately, there are very few ammonoids common to both these sections. Indeed, the Alpine succession in general is not without its drawbacks when an attempt is made to determine sequential faunal relationships. In the red Hallstatt limestone facies in the Alps and throughout the Tethyan region, ammonoids often occur in lenses (that is, deposits bounded by converging surfaces that are thick in the middle and thin toward the edges) in areas of tectonic complexity. Furthermore, faunas are often condensed through possible postdepositional submarine solution, which results in “cemeteries” of ammonoids of different ages in close association. Also, fracturing and solution occurring at nearly the same time during the Triassic apparently caused local mixing and inversion of zones as younger beds collapsed into solutional voids in older strata. Such condensed and mixed assemblages have led to difficulties for paleontologists attempting to use the Alpine zonal scheme as a standard for correlating marine Triassic sequences in other regions. Nevertheless, the importance of the Alpine Triassic should not be underestimated in the history of Triassic studies, because by the end of the 19th century its fossils permitted initial correlations to be made with the Germanic Muschelkalk and with marine sequences in the Arctic, Pacific, Himalayas, and Pakistan.

North American strata

      Isolated occurrences of marine Triassic rocks in western North America were known by 1890, but discoveries of several hundred new localities from the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin and the Sverdrup Basin of Arctic Canada between about 1955 and 1980 added much information to the biochronology of the region. It also was recognized that more than half the world's known genera of ammonoids occurred in North America, testifying to the cosmopolitan nature of the group. Dissatisfaction with the problems of using the Alpine succession as a standard for Triassic time led to the proposal of a new zonal scheme based on relatively complete and in-place sequences in Arctic Canada, northeastern British Columbia, and the western United States. This proposal was primarily the work of the Canadian paleontologist E. Timothy Tozer, who, with the American paleontologist Norman J. Silberling, provided precisely defined stratotypes for all the recognized North American biozones. The North American zonal scheme is now accepted by most authorities as the standard for Triassic global biostratigraphy and allows Alpine (western Tethyan) and Boreal (Siberian) zones to be placed in their proper chronological sequence.

Paleomagnetic techniques

      It should be borne in mind that, because of the endemism (restriction in the geographic distribution) of most ammonoid species, it is often difficult to correlate faunal assemblages between widely separated regions. Because ammonoids and conodonts are found together, a conodont biochronology can often be accurately intercalibrated with the ammonoid zonation, as established for North America by Michael J. Orchard. Additional tools for correlation include the development of a Triassic sea-level curve for the Sverdrup Basin of Arctic Canada and a Triassic magnetic polarity timescale derived from paleomagnetic studies of mainly sedimentary sequences. Correlating rocks by means of polarity time units imprinted on rocks at the time they form is known as magnetochronostratigraphy and is likely to become more important in the future.

Establishing Triassic boundaries

The Permian-Triassic boundary

      The exact position of both the Permian-Triassic and Triassic-Jurassic boundaries has been the subject of great controversy for many years. The transition from latest Permian to earliest Triassic is nowhere represented by a continuous (conformable) succession of marine strata containing fossils that are not open to ambiguous age interpretation. The Germanic facies is of little value in the dispute, for there the continental Bunter Formation rests unconformably on Upper Permian strata of the Zechstein basin. The marine equivalent of the Bunter in the Alps is the Werfen Limestone; there the distinctive Lower Triassic bivalve genus Claraia is found in apparently conformable contact with the underlying Bellerophon Limestone, in which undisputed Permian faunas are found. However, recent studies suggest that the lowermost Werfen may contain Permian fossils. In the Himalayas Claraia occurs with the ammonoid Otoceras in the so-called Otoceras beds, but are these beds Permian or Triassic? A Triassic age is suggested by the presence of Claraia, but otoceratids also occur in undisputed Permian strata in the Dzhulfa (Julfa) region in Armenia near the Iranian border. It was agreed as long ago as the early 1900s that the Armenian otoceratids were not in the strictest sense identical with Otoceras and that the Himalayan Otoceras beds should define the base of the Triassic System. This issue, however, has been raised again by those who regard the Otoceras beds as Permian rather than Triassic.

      At key localities where apparently conformable sequences occur, as in Armenia, Pakistan, Kashmir, Arctic Canada, Greenland, Spitsbergen, Tibet, China, Siberia, and northern Alaska, the boundary beds—often of limited thickness—usually contain mixtures of Permian-type and Triassic-type faunas or show evidence of an unconformity or paraconformity (that is, an unconformity in parallel strata that is virtually indistinguishable from a simple bedding plane because no effects of erosion are discernible). It is these transitional beds that are the crux of the boundary problem. In the Salt Range of Pakistan, for instance, Permian brachiopods are found in close association with undisputed Triassic fossils, which suggests the possibility of Permian relics living in earliest Triassic time. Yet recent studies suggest that both latest Permian and earliest Triassic strata are missing in this section. In East Greenland mixed faunas occur at the boundary, with Triassic ammonoids in association with Permian productacean brachiopods, but the latter appear to be derived, having been incorporated into Triassic sediments by reworking. A similar situation may prevail at the famous Guryul Ravine section in Kashmir. Studies on new sections in Tibet (Selong-Xishan) and China (Shangsi, Meishan) have not yet led to agreement on whether there is continuous sedimentation between the Permian and Triassic or a well-disguised unconformity. Tozer supports the latter view and, furthermore, believes that there is evidence of a worldwide unconformity (often difficult to recognize) at the base of the Otoceras zone. He advocates that this level should once again define the Permian-Triassic boundary, since it clearly records a universal geologic event of great significance to marine biotas. Accordingly, he has proposed a stratotype for the boundary at the base of the Blind Fjord Formation of northwestern Axel Heiberg Island in Arctic Canada, where the O. concavum zone (equivalent to the O. woodwardi zone of the Himalayas) rests unconformably on Permian strata. However, recent opinion indicates that a more suitable place for the global stratotype section and point (GSSP) for the Permian-Triassic boundary might be at Meishan, where it is taken to be the base of the Hindeodus parvus (the same as Orchard's Isarcicella parva) conodont zone. This proposal awaits formal ratification by the Subcommission on Triassic Stratigraphy.

The Triassic-Jurassic boundary

      The exact position of the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic has been less contentious but not without its problems. Traditionally, marine rocks stratigraphically above the Keuper marl in Germany and the New Red Sandstone in Britain have been regarded as either uppermost Triassic or lowermost Jurassic. These rocks contain the distinctive bivalve species Rhaetavicula contorta but no ammonoids. Rocks of this R. contorta zone in northwestern Europe have been correlated with the stratotype of the Rhaetian Stage, the marine Kössen beds in the Rhaetian Alps, mainly on the basis of the common occurrence of R. contorta. The Alpine Rhaetian contains a few ammonoids that are regarded as Late Triassic in affinity but not exclusively Rhaetian. The correlation of the Rhaetian of northwestern Europe with that of the Alps has been questioned, however, and it has been suggested that the former may actually be lowermost Jurassic in age. While most biostratigraphers would include at least the Alpine Rhaetian Stage in the Triassic, Tozer and others have advocated abandoning the term Rhaetian as a formal stage name and assigning Alpine Rhaetian rocks and their correlatives in North America and elsewhere to the uppermost Norian Stage. However, the Subcommission on Triassic Stratigraphy has recommended retaining its usage as a Triassic stage, and their recommendation has been followed in this article.

Alan Logan

Additional Reading

Introductory works

A popular reference work, richly illustrated with maps and artists' recreations of life in all geologic time periods, including the Triassic, is Douglas Palmer, Atlas of the Prehistoric World (1999). General works on Earth history that discuss the Triassic Period are Harold L. Levin, The Earth Through Time, 6th ed. (1999); Steven M. Stanley, Earth System History (1999); and Reed Wicander and James S. Monroe, Historical Geology, 3rd ed. (2000).

Paleoclimate, biology, and extinctions

A general reference for paleoclimates is Judith Totman Parrish, “Climate of the Supercontinent Pangea,” Journal of Geology, 101(2):215–233 (March 1993). For information on Triassic reefs, see Donald Francis Toomey (ed.), European Fossil Reef Models (1981). The early emergence of dinosaurs is treated by Kevin Padian (ed.), The Beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs: Faunal Change Across the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary (1986, reissued 1988). Mass extinctions at the end of the Permian and the Triassic are described in A. Hallam and P.B. Wignall (eds.), Mass Extinctions and Their Aftermath (1997).

Stratigraphy and biozonation

The basics of magnetostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and sequence stratigraphy are described in Sam Boggs, Jr., Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy, 2nd ed. (1995). Sea-level changes in the Triassic are discussed in Anthony Hallam, Phanerozoic Sea-Level Changes (1992). Boundary problems are discussed in A. Logan and L.V. Hills (eds.), The Permian and Triassic Systems and Their Mutual Boundary (1973). Detailed information on ammonoid, cephalopod, and conodont biozonation of the Triassic is found in E.T. Tozer, “Canadian Triassic Ammonoid Faunas,” GSC Bulletin, 467 (1994); and in M.J. Orchard and E.T. Tozer, “Triassic Conodont Biochronology: Its Calibration with the Ammonoid Standard, and a Biostratigraphic Summary for the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin,” Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, 45(4):675–692 (December 1997). Also important is Felix M. Gradstein et al., “A Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Time Scale,” in William A. Berggren et al. (eds.), Geochronology, Time Scales, and Global Stratigraphic Correlation (1995), pp. 95–126; and W. Brian Harland et al., A Geologic Time Scale, 1989, rev. ed. (1990).Alan Logan

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