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The taxonomy of ostracods from one deep-water, one shallow shelf and three paralic sections spanning the end-Permian extinction in South China (Guizhou and Yunnan) is summarized and discussed. We report on the occurrence of nine species, including mass occurrences of Hollinella panxiensisWang, on the surface of these clastic Permian-Triassic transitional beds. The preservation of thematerial allows for the description of the central muscle scar field of Langdaia suboblongaWang, which is the first observation of this character for the genus. These firstly described assemblages differ from those from post-extinction microbial deposits in being dominated by Palaeocopida. They illustrate survival without recovery after the end-Permian crisis, as none of the reported taxa participated in the subsequent Triassic diversification. We relate this phenomenon to clastic input and show that the patchy survival of benthic faunas following the crisis is an interplay between environments and adaptive potential. The persistence of Palaeocopida as a function of their depth distribution is discussed with the illustration of short-term survival of Hollinellidae in shallow areas, as opposed to the survival of Kirkbyidae in deep-marine waters until, at least, the Late Triassic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stable isotopes of inorganic and organic carbon are commonly used in chemostratigraphy to correlate marine and terrestrial sedimentary sequences based on the assumption that the carbon isotopic signature of the exogenic carbon pool dominates other sources of variability. Here, sediment samples from four Permian–Triassic boundary (PTB) sections of western Guizhou and eastern Yunnan provinces in South China, representing a terrestrial to marine transitional setting, were analyzed for δ 13 C of organic matter (δ 13 C org ). These values were subsequently compared to published δ 13 C values of carbonates (δ 13 C carb ) from the Global Stratotype Section and Point at Meishan and many other marine and terrestrial sections. A similar isotopic trend evident through all four sections is characterized by a negative shift of 2–3‰ at the top of the Xuanwei Formation, where we tentatively place the PTB. This negative shift also corresponds to a turnover in the vegetation and the occurrence of fungal spores, which is generally interpreted as a proliferation of decomposers and collapse of complex ecosystems during the end-Permian mass extinction event. Moreover, the absolute values of δ 13 C org are more extreme in the more distal (marine) deposits. The δ 13 C org values for the studied sediments are more variable compared to coeval δ 13 C carb records from marine records especially in the interval below the extinction horizon. We contend that the depositional environment influenced the δ 13 C org values, but that the persisting geographic δ 13 C org pattern through the extinction event across the four independent sections is an indication that the atmospheric δ 13 C signal left an indelible imprint on the geologic record related to the profound ecosystem change during the end-Permian extinction event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]