This session examines the role of volcanism, meteorite impact(s), climate, and sea-level changes in mass extinction events. Mass extinctions are global phenomena that have fundamentally influenced the evolution of life on Earth. Recent research is tending to implicate ever more complex earth systems feedback mechanisms in mass extinctions, rather than the simplistic single-cause scenarios that swayed debate in the 1980s. The aim of this session is to explore the underlying factors that contribute to environmental change and mass extinctions. Submissions are encouraged that investigate the relationships between mass extinction and volcanism, meteorite impacts, climate, sea-level, and other Earth system processes. We also welcome contributions dealing with these factors for time intervals not associated with mass extinction, but which help form a more general frame of understanding. We strongly encourage participation from cross-disciplinary research communities, including geochemists, geochronologists, sedimentologists, palaeontologists, palaeomagnetists, palaeobotanists, palaeoclimate modelers and Earth systems scientists.

Sollicited people: Vincent Courtillot (courtil@ipgp.fr), Mike Benton (Mike.Benton@bristol.ac.uk) and Guillaume Suan (Guillaume.Suan@unil.ch)