4 pagesInternational audienceThe tropical, warm, and equable climate of the Jurassic world is regularly challenged by geoscientists, especially since oxygen isotopes ( 18O) of fossil hardparts have been used to reconstruct the paleotemperature history of seawater. By applying the innovative “SiZer” (significant zero crossings of the derivatives) statistical approach to a newly compiled 18O database for the Jurassic, we demonstrate the occurrence of major and multiscale 18O changes mainly related to climate disturbances. For the first time, two long-term anomalies in 18O are identified during the Toarcian and the Late Jurassic, in conjunction with intensive volcanism in large igneous provinces. These results support a strong influence of repeated volcanic pulses on the modulation of pCO2, temperatures, and polar ice cap volumes over protracted periods. At shorter time scales, 13 relatively rapid (0.5–1 m.y.) and significant warming and cooling events are identified, the causes of which include transient fluctuations in greenhouse gas concentrations related to still-debated mechanisms

The Pliensbachian–Toarcian interval was marked by major environmental disturbances and by a second-order mass extinction. Here, we reappraise the taxonomic, spatiotemporal and selective dynamics of extinctions over the whole interval, by analysing a high-resolution dataset of 772 ammonite species from NW Tethyan and Arctic domains. On average, 40–65% of ammonite species disappeared during each subchronozone, but higher extinction pulses (reaching 70–90%) prevailed from the Margaritatus to the Dispansum Chronozone. The main extinctions, corresponding to the Gibbosus, Pliensbachian–Toarcian boundary, Semicelatum, Bifrons–Variabilis, and Dispansum events, differed in their dynamics, suggesting episodes of ecological stress related to climate change, regression, disturbance in the carbon cycle or anoxia. The multi-pulsed volcanic activity in the Karoo–Ferrar province could well have triggered these ecological changes. In addition, ammonites experienced a morphological bottleneck during the Gibbosus event, 1 Ma before the Early Toarcian diversity collapse. Typically, drops in richness were related both to high extinctions and to declines in origination rates. This feature could result from strengthened ecological stresses related to the temporal overlap of environmental disturbances. After the Early Toarcian crisis, the recovery of ammonites was rapid (2 Ma) and probably influenced by a coeval marine transgression. Supplementary material: Figures showing a comparison of extinction and origination patterns based on different datasets, and variations of the morphospace occupation are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18381 .