Extinction events

Patterns of Vertebrate Evolution and Catastrophes Catastrophic events, such as mass extinctions, floods, earthquakes, disease, and more recently war, are all events that have shaped vertebrate evolution through time. In prehistoric times, mass extinctions have been caused by asteroid and meteor impacts, which can cause serious environmental damage by ejecting dust and debris (Carpenter and Bishop, 2009). The stress from the impact could trigger additional earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and would

Charles Marshall’s article “How Stable Are Food Webs During Mass Extinctions?” reflects on the current “human-driven mass extinction” occurring today (Marshall). Researchers are wondering what will happen to the food web after the mass extinction humans are creating occurs and finishes. To find out the effects that may occur, Marshall brings up the subject of prehistoric food webs and the changes brought upon them from mass extinctions. Using prehistoric fossil records and devising these animals into

"The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History," by Elizabeth Kolbert, explores previous cases of mass extinction throughout history, and how they translate to present time. The novel begins with the in-depth investigation within specific species and ecological events that have been negatively impacted by human intervention. Throughout the book, Kolbert continues this argument by reviewing Earth's environmental and biological aspects and how they are changing the world as well as its inhabitants. She

Frasnian-Famennian mass extinction in the Late Devonian has often been considered as one of the major 5 extinctions through time. Conflicting interpretations for the cause of this extinction exist, but the role of volcanism is becoming increasingly appealing due to recent advances in radioisotope dating. New K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar ages for the Viluy traps in Siberia suggest multiphase emplacement of the Viluy traps with an early phase likely contributing to the Frasnian-Famennian mass extinction. Other work supports

Sixth Extinction Writing Throughout the history of the Earth, many life forms have appeared on the planet. Almost every single one of those are no longer represented on Earth. They have gone extinct. This phenomenon of a species completely getting wiped from the planet usually happens periodically, for a variety of reasons. Usually this process takes a long time, thousands or perhaps millions of years. However, on occasion much of Earth's life will be wiped out in a mass extinction. This event is typically

Scientists believe, that the earth in the middle of a sixth ongoing mass extinction, which was given the name of The Holocene extinction due to our modern Holocene epoch. Discussion The Holocene epoch continues from 11 500 years ago until the nowadays and still keep going. Sixth Extinction event can be blamed for significant loss of larger mammals (woolly mammoth, cave lion, cave bear and etc.) during the end of Ice Age extinction event 9 000 to 13 000 years ago, which was caused by climate change. In

Many people have dreamed about visiting Alaska when they are on vacation. Alaska is a state with beautiful mountains, landscapes, and wild animals that has attracted many tourists around the world. With lands filled with snow, skies filled with the Northern Lights, and delightful animals, such as the fuzzy penguins, that wander around the place. However, in this past few years, these snows have been melting, and some animals disappearing. All of this is due to global warming. To some people, global

are now extinct. The Cretaceous extinction occurred around 65 million years ago. Many species vanished in that extinction. Yet, the fossil evidence of its occurrence is rich. Therefore, scientists have narrowed down several of the most likely causes of the mass extinction, such as volcano eruptions, asteroid collisions, and sea level falls. With that, there are several other known events, including, global warming, global cooling, methane eruptions and anoxic events when the earth's

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

The Permo-Triassic mass extinction: what died out LIFE IN THE SEA Fusulinid foraminifera disappeared completely, although other foram groups suffered much lower levels of extinction. Palaeozoic corals (Rugosa and Tabulata) also vanished. Stenolaemate bryozoans and articulate brachiopods suffered near-complete extinction. The extant echinoderm groups all experienced severe bottlenecks at this time: only two lineages of crinoids and echinoids made it into the Mesozoic. Several echinoderm groups (e