Introduction

Abstract

The Permian−Triassic transition witnessed the greatest mass extinction and ecosystem turnover of the Phanerozoic (Alroy et al. 2008; Chen and Benton 2012). The event has inspired (and would inspire) generations of palaeontologists to interrogate this great dying, with no sign of abating. South China, as an isolated block, was located in the eastern Palaeotethyan gape during the Late Permian−earliest Triassic (Blakey 2008) and contains some of the most complete Permian−Triassic marine-facies sequences (Erwin 1993; Yin 1996). Tens of sections with continuous Permian−Triassic depositional successions have been recognized in South China (Zhao et al. 1981; Sheng et al. 1984; Yang et al. 1987; Li et al. 1989; Yang et al. 1991; Shen et al. 1995; Yin et al. 2001). These sections have attracted many geologists to conduct detailed research on the stratigraphy, palaeontology and palaeoenvironment centred around the Permian−Triassic mass extinction (e.g., Jin et al. 2000; Xie et al. 2005; Shen et al. 2001; Joachimski et al. 2012; Algeo et al. 2013; Song et al. 2013; He et al. 2015). Based on the research, an episodic mass-extinction pattern (e.g., single- or two-episode) has been proposed (Yang et al. 1991; Jin et al. 2000; Song et al. 2013).