The Sixth Extinction Essay

period lasted 53 million years and consisted of mostly shallow oceans covering the continents. Skeletons grew in life forms and new life forms exploded across the shallow seas. Shortly after this time, the Earth underwent its first mass extinction. The extinction led into the Silurian and Devonian periods where life moved onto land. Plants began to grow and new fishes began to

Extinction: A Radical History is a book published by writer, professor and activist Ashley Dawson. It was published on the 22nd of April 2016. Dawson talks about multiple broad subjects in his book like how Capitalism is the main source of mass extinction. By doing so, he takes into account the lengthy history of the Homo Sapiens species, their activities and their discoveries and how us, humans, have affected today’s biodiversity

in nature due to the people. Next, this article discussed climate change and the impact that it is having on species like clams, and fish due to ocean temperatures rising. The article also addressed carbon dating of fossils to look for cause of extinctions. Human development and agriculture have had a tremendous impact on the population of many species that are terrestrial. Deforestation is a big problem that has caused a decline in the bird species. Commercial fishing in many areas has led to a decline

worth the price paid and two ways to fix it is to push the government to support organizations that push for anti-deforestation and reforestation. = The loss of forest cover is a contributing factor to many environmental problems, including species extinction (Unraveling the Economics of Deforestation). Rainforests are home to countless species of animals, many of which are endangered. While in the United States there are laws like the Endangered Species Act. Trees are still being torn down in enormous

Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event Over 98% of all organisms that have lived on Earth are now extinct. A mass extinction event occurs when a large number of species die out within a small time frame (relative to the age of Earth). Mass extinctions are intensively studied for both cause and effect, as there is usually room for debate regarding catalysts that precede the extinction and the massive influx of new biological species that follows. There have been five major mass extinctions, dubbed the “Big

approximate number of species that go extinct every year because no one knows how many species the Earth holds. Scientists argue between 2 million and 100 million total species (WWF). What can be agreed upon is that the extinction rate is well over 1,000 times the natural extinction

White have combined their minds to explain their hypothesis about how Earth’s mass extinctions are caused by the solar system’s movement through the Milky Way galaxy’s spiral arms in the article titled, Mass Extinction and the Structure of the Milky Way. In all Earth’s history there have been five known mass extinctions, 415, 322, 300, 145, and 33 million years ago (Crawford et al. 2013). The oldest mass extinction happening over 415 million years ago is thought to be caused by a short, but severe

Not long ago, recently actually, a by-chance discovery was made in permafrost. First mistaken for a deer carcass, half submerged, was the small and fragile body of a 10,000 year old baby woolly rhino. It was estimated that it was about 18 months when it passed away, and then spent the next 9,998 years (and some change) frozen in the Sakha Republic. Sasha, the name of the baby woolly rhino, is actually the first baby of the kind found! Does this call for a birthday celebration? Absolutely! The woolly

rapid population growth. This is causing the extinction of many other living things and when

Life has existed on Earth for a few billions years and it is the evolution of life that has changed the physical nature of Earth. As life diversified, several mass extinction events occurred. We are currently experiencing the sixth mass extinction. The sixth mass extinction accounts for the loss of biodiversity induced by humans (Anthropocene) (George Jackman 2017). For example, currently anthropogenic greenhouse gases are the highest in history which affects the changes in climate (“Global Climate