Terrestrial environmental change across the Permian-Triassic boundary in the Karoo Zambezi Basin, Mozambique: Integrating palynological, sedimentological and carbon isotope evidence

The Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB; ca. 252 Ma) marks the most severe biotic crisis in Earth history, yet high-resolution terrestrial records from southeastern Gondwana, outside the Main Karoo Basin of South Africa, remain scarce. We present a multidisciplinary investigation of borehole CIMT-014 from the N'Condédzi Coalfield, Mozambique, which preserves a near-continuous continental succession spanning the PTB within the Karoo Zambezi Basin. Sedimentological, palynological, palynofacies, total organic carbon (TOC), and organic carbon isotope (δ 13 Corg) analyses were integrated to reconstruct environmental, ecological, and carbon-cycle changes across the transition. The uppermost Permian Matinde Formation comprises organic-rich floodplain mudstones, siltstones, and thin coal seams deposited under warm, humid conditions and dominated by Glossopteris -associated gymnosperm floras. Crossing the PTB, these deposits are abruptly replaced by conglomeratic, lacustrine, and fluvial sediments of the Cádzi Formation. Palynological data document a marked decline of glossopterid and other gymnosperm pollen, followed by a short-lived increase in opportunistic lycophyte and fern spores. Concurrently, palynofacies shift from assemblages rich in non-opaque phytoclasts to assemblages dominated by opaque phytoclasts, while TOC values decline from >40 wt% in coal-bearing intervals to <0.2 wt% in the earliest Triassic succession. A pronounced negative δ 13 Corg excursion of approximately 5.4‰ occurs across the boundary interval, with values decreasing from −25.0‰ to a minimum of −30.4‰. The magnitude, stratigraphic coherence, and association with floral turnover, cessation of peat formation, and fluvial reorganisation indicate that the isotopic carbon excursion records a major perturbation of the global carbon cycle rather than local diagenetic effects. The isotopic signal is consistent with widespread carbon-cycle disruption linked to Siberian Traps magmatism and associated greenhouse-gas emissions. Our results demonstrate that terrestrial ecosystems in southeastern Gondwana experienced profound ecological and environmental disruption during the end-Permian crisis and establish the Karoo Zambezi Basin of Mozambique as a key archive for correlating continental records of the PTB in Gondwana.