Comment on “Dying in the Sun: Direct evidence for elevated UV-B radiation at the end-Permian mass extinction”

Abstract

Liu et al. present evidence of increased abundance of UV-B–absorbing compounds in fossilized sporomorphs at the end-Permian mass extinction based on Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Their approach assumes that UV-B–absorbing compounds are present in the fossilized sporomorphs spanning the extinction interval and that they can be quantified using FTIR. However, further analysis reveals that the signal that they aim to focus on is weak and poorly resolved against nonrandom background interference most likely associated with water vapor. We also show that the peak detection methods that they use are inappropriate for use on these fossil sporomorphs because their methods select only 3.9% of the spectra at the target waveband of interest. The reconstruction that they present is based on baseline variations in the spectra and cannot be confidently attributed to variations in UV-B–absorbing compounds. “Direct” evidence for UV-B radiation at the end-Permian mass extinction cannot be claimed to have been observed in this record.