The Great Dying: The Permian-Triassic Death

So what killed the dinosaurs? Without having any background education in science it is hard for the general public to comprehend such matters and they rely on the knowledge of the scientists in this field. Although there has been much research on the subject nobody has come up with a conclusive answer. And we are left to read the countless articles, all having their own opinions as to the mass extinction. One such theory is that a shift in the solar system could have caused the mass destruction. According to an article published in Nature magazine,

The scientists believe that the herbivores ran out of plants, and trees and so all of the herbivores died and after all of the herbivores died, all of the Carnivores died as well. Another theory is that a big asteroid hit the Earth, and the asteroid caused a global extinction.. The final theory that the scientists thought of happening was a disease. Disease may of happened from one dinosaur getting sick and then it just passed on from dinosaur to dinosaur.

Nobody knows for sure exactly how the dinosaurs became extinct. However scientists have speculated for decades about possible events that caused the dinosaurs to die out. Possibilities range from asteroids, to volcanoes, to climate changes. One of the more popular or well-known extinction theories involves the belief that an asteroid struck the Earth, causing devastating effects, and triggering mass extinctions around the end of the Cretaceous period.

The main dinosaurs that died off were Sauropod dinosaurs, long necked, four legged dinosaurs, and stegosauridae, class holding Stegosaurus. Other species that died include ammonites, similar to the living animals called nautilus, many marine reptiles, and bivalves, relatable to modern mollusca. Not much is known about this extinction. It is mainly linked to climate change. So far, no connection to volcanic activity or an asteroid has been made. This extinction gave way to the Cretaceous Period.

<b>Introduction</b><br>Think of a world which existed 290 million years ago. As you look out over the terane in front of you, you think that you are on an alien planet. You see volcanoes spewing ash and lava. Beside them is the ocean which is swarming with many different species of echinoderms, bryozoans and brachiopods. As you look down onto the sea floor you are amazed at the countless number of starfish and urchins. Some animals leave you can't even describe and you have no idea even what phylum they belong to. This is a world at its height in diversity of oceanic species. Millions of wonderous species existed at this time in the ocean and most of them will never appear again in earth's history. In the geologic time scale, a million

this mass extinction is what brought us the jurassic period, and from the Jurassic period, or the

Just the fact that the Pope has ignored the warnings of Catholic presidential candidates and is trying to fight climate change is monumental. Global warming is a global issue. No matter what religion or ethnicity global warming will affect everyone. Earth is the only known planet capable of supporting life. How embarrassing will it be for our generation if we wipe out life because of our ignorance. Earth has a marvelous ability to rebuild and return to a healthy state. After each of the five mass extinction events Earth was resilient enough to survive and so did life. After the most notorious, the Permian Mass Extinction, less than 4% of life survived. Miraculously Earth rebuilt its ecosystems and was able to sustain life. The causes of the

The Cretaceous period is a period of time within the Mesozoic Era lasting from 146 million years ago to 65.5 million years ago. It is one of three periods in the Mesozoic Era along with the Triassic and Jurassic periods. The Cretaceous period is well known for the amount of dinosaurs it had, and the event that put an end to the dinosaurs reign, the K-T mass extinction. During the K-T mass extinction, a huge asteroid hit earth and caused tons of dust to infiltrate the air. Only a small portion of dinosaurs died on impact Instead, the dust blocked out sunlight which caused plants to die. Without plants, many dinosaurs did not have a food source, so the died out. Carnivore dinosaurs, such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex, survived a little longer

The Permian mass extinction, that struck about 250 million years ago, caused a mass extinction of reef and shallow water communities. Groups that lived on the seafloor and filtered organic material from the water for nourishment suffered the greatest extinction. Those include corals, shelled in-vertebrates, and a variety of sea lilies. Others marine groups includes trilobites, zooplankton and snails. Even though these species died in the water, living organisms on land were not much better off. Terrestrial vertebrates and insects both experienced a big loss in each of their groups. Also suffering a big loss was the insect family due to the lack of plant life and food. Seventy Eight percent of reptiles became extinct and sixty seven percent of the amphibian family became extinct during this time period.

As birds, like mammals, are warm-blooded, they too are able to sustain their own body heat throughout the year. If dinosaurs were able to, as well, that would compose even more evidence in favor of dinosaurs sharing more traits in common with birds than with reptiles, as their given name, “terrible lizard”, would wrongly infer. Consequently, it seems that this discovery brings out a whole new set of questions as to how the dinosaurs truly ended up dying off at the end of the Mesozoic era, whether it be that their food supply dwindled or a combination of catastrophes that

Further more you can begin to wonder what could have been the explanation for these land and marine species to become extinct. Their have been many explanations and hypothesis to try to explain why these land and marine species became extinct including the belief of plate tectonic shifts. This particular explanation goes along with the belief that shifts in plate tectonics ( which includes the shift in the earths outer most layer) have moved certain species that are more heavily adapted to the sun and shifted them to colder regions and vice versa (Smith). In the text Smith explains how the particular hypothesis used is known as being intrinsic (meaning a natural; and gradual, taking some time to occur (few millions years). The evidence of this particular theory actually being the cause of the cretaceous mass extinction is placed on the sea levels and fossil record. The rise in seas levels have made million year old fossils appear above thousands of feet of present day sea level, which would give the hint that ocean levels fell drastically as the cretaceous period came to an end (Jones). Not only that , but the fossil record shows that dinosaur species didn't dramatically become extinct but gradually declining millions of years before the cretaceous mass extinction actually happened (

The Cretaceous time period was the last time period in which dinosaurs are seen. This time period spanned from 144 million years ago (mya) to 66 mya; right after the Jurassic time period and before the Tertiary. This is a time when dinosaurs were at their height with many thousands of different species known or yet to be identified. Our earliest ancestors were small rodent-like mammals that lived during this time and gradually evolved into the many different types of mammals we see today. The dinosaurs though, would become small reptiles such as the lizards we see today after one of the greatest known extinctions of all times-the K-T Extinction also known as the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Triassic Period, The Triassic period was the first-time period of the Mesozoic era. This period occurred between 251 to 199 Million years ago. This was the period of diversification of the earth's ecology especially the marine creatures. Triassic Period is often known as the age of reptiles because there were a group of animals and plants that were extinct the Permian Extinction: One called the Therapsids, which were mammal-like reptiles, spiders, millipedes, scorpion, and centipedes but there was a new insect group of the Triassic period was the grasshoppers. Mosses and fern survived in the coastal regions you could find Lycopodiopsid, Puzzlegrass, Conifers, Cycad plants. Geologists said this period began and end when the large extinction

Dinosaur extinction: An analysis of events and theories that possibly led to the dinosaurs' demise.

Jurassic is a period of time with Dinosaurs, rodents and birds. There were also island seas consisting of sharks, sea monsters and blood-red planktons. The existing plants in that period were cycads, ferns and conifers. The Mesozoic era was about 245 million years ago to 65 years ago, so it almost lasted about 180 years in total. The Mesozoic era is divided into three periods of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. Mesozoic era means middle animals and it is the era, which the word’s fauna has changed from what is in the Paleozoic era and the most famous organisms of this era are dinosaurs. In the Mesozoic era, the extinction of more than 90 percent of species in the earth was observed and the reason behind it was mostly volcanic eruptions and climate changes. On the other hand, this era had massive changes that represented ecological niches and rise to new creatures such as rodent-size mammals and first dinosaurs. In Triassic, which was the first period of Mesozoic, the mammals and first dinosaurs existed. Later than that, the second period was Jurassic, which giant shaped dinosaurs and other kinds of dinosaurs were developed. Besides that the first flowering plants and primitive birds, with long teeth appeared in that era as well.