Precise timing and temporal evolution of Late Carboniferous/early Permian volcanism in the Southern Permian Basin

• Applicant: Dr. Alexandra Käßner
• Subject Area: Geology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 565412265

The Late Carboniferous–early Permian (300-290 Ma) was a period of large-scale tectonic transformation and reorganization throughout Europe. The tectonic change from a compressional towards an extensional setting led to the eruption of a huge amount of volcanic rocks in the Southern Permian Basin. This explosive silicic to intermediate volcanism likely had a major influence on global climate and biota. The climatic and biotic evolution at that time has been recorded in great detail in the volcano-sedimentary successions of small Carboniferous/Permian continental basins in Central and Southern Europe. To understand the impact of volcanism, the continental basins as well as the huge volcanic province of the Southern Permian Basin have to be correlated with high precision and the temporal evolution of the Southern Permian Basin needs to be investigated. During the last years, many small occurrences of volcanic rocks that are interlayered with the sediments in small Carboniferous/Permian continental basins have been dated using high-precision zircon U-Pb CA-ID-TIMS (chemical abrasion – isotope dilution – thermal ionization mass spectrometry) dating. A lot of these data has been produced by our working group at TU Bergakademie Freiberg. The high precision of these data allowed to determine the duration of volcanism and the exact timing of volcanic culminations and magmatic gaps for the first time. On the other hand, hitherto existing age data of the Southern Permian Basin have been determined with less precise methods, so that all ages are same within error and do not allow to understand the timing and the temporal evolution of the huge volcanic province. I am planning to systematically sample the felsic to intermediate volcanic rocks of the Southern Permian Basin and to determine their ages by using high-precision zircon U-Pb CA-ID-TIMS dating. The parallel determination of geochemical and isotopic constraints on zircon and apatite will allow understanding the sources and the magmatic evolution of the volcanic rocks and give constraints on the tectonic setting. The comparison and correlation with Carboniferous/Permian continental basins will finally lead to an overall tectonic and magmatic evolution scenario of Central Europe, and lay the basis to understand the influence of silicic volcanism on climate and environment.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland, Sweden, Switzerland
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Elzbieta Slodczyk; Dr. Dawid Szymanowski; Professor Martin Whitehouse, Ph.D.