Precise Re-Os age and low initial 187Os/188Os for latest Permian black shales from the mid-Norwegian shelf herald the Permo-Triassic extinction

The Permo-Triassic boundary records a profound chemical transition and the largest mass extinction in Earth history. Understanding the causal events requires detailed examination of bio/chemo stratigraphic changes precisely pinned in absolute time. Here we report Re-Os isotopic results for well-defined black shale horizons within the Upper Permian marine succession from the Mid-Norwegian shelf: (1) a high-precision Re-Os depositional age and (2) a record of the changes in the Os isotopic composition of seawater at the onset of the Permo-Triassic extinction. Drill core penetrating a Permian-Triassic turbidite succession on the Trøndelag platform, offshore mid-Norway, provided nine organic rich (~3.5% TOC) shale samples over a ca. 30 cm interval. The Re-Os isochron age associated with these samples is extremely precise (< 1 m.y. uncertainty) at 253 Ma with an MSWD near unity. These data place a precise time pin in the studied section and the presumably correlative onshore exposures of the Ravnefjeld formation in East Greenland, indicating deposition of these shales immediately before the catastrophic changes at the Permo-Triassic boundary. Accompanying the isochron regression is a well-determined initial 187Os/188Os ratio of ca. 0.5, notably lower than seawater in the Lower Triassic (Xu et al. 2009). This Os isotopic composition for latest Permian seawater suggests an increase in mantle (or meteoric) material and/or a markedly reduced supply of eroded continental material heralding the up-coming extinction event. These Permian black shales are considered as alternative or complementary source rocks for some of the oil resources in the Norwegian Sea. Our work confirms geographically extensive Upper Permian black shale across the shelves of East Greenland and Norway, implying a major anoxia at the northern margin of Pangea shortly before the Permo-Triassic mass extinction. Xu et al. (2009) GCA, v. 73, no. 13. p. A1463