Latest Extinction event Stories
Researchers have pinpointed the timing of the start of an ancient global warming episode known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). The early part of the Cenozoic era witnessed a series of transit global warming events called hyperthermals. The most severe of these was the PETM at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, which took place around 56 million years ago. Over a 20,000-year period, ocean temperatures rose globally by about 41 degrees Fahrenheit. The team said one...
After the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history "“ 250 million years ago "“ algae and bacteria in the ocean rebounded so fast that they consumed virtually all the oxygen in the sea, slowing the recovery of the rest of marine animals for several million years.A mass extinction is hard enough for Earth's biosphere to handle, but when you chase it with prolonged oxygen deprivation, the biota ends up with a hangover that can last millions of years.Such was the situation with the greatest...
Researchers use a ground-breaking technique that reveals a relationship between cooler temperatures and Earth's second largest mass extinction, which occurred about 450 million years agoIn the Late Ordovician Period of Earth's geologic history, about 450 million years ago, more than 75 percent of marine species perished and Earth scientists have been seeking to discover what caused the extinction. It was the second largest in Earth's history.Now, using a new research method, investigators...
About 450 million years ago, Earth suffered the second-largest mass extinction in its history"”the Late Ordovician mass extinction, during which more than 75 percent of marine species died. Exactly what caused this tremendous loss in biodiversity remains a mystery, but now a team led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has discovered new details supporting the idea that the mass extinction was linked to a cooling climate."While it's been known for a long...
A massive new fossil site discovered in southwestern China marks the first discovery of a complete ecosystem which recovered following a mass extinction.According to Guardian Science Correspondent Ian Sample, "the spectacular haul of 20,000 fossils," which was discovered at a hillside in what it now Luoping county in the Yunnan Province of China, were "beautifully preserved" and included "mollusks, sea urchins and arthropods, alongside much larger animals that...
Australian marine scientists have expressed disquiet over the continued worldwide spread of large, dead zones in the ocean.Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and Professor Mark McCormick of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies have recently published scientific articles which raise concern about the impact of large areas of ocean emerging which are so low in oxygen that fish and other sea life cannot survive.Hundreds of dead zones are being reported around the world in areas that...
The meters-long, carnivorous "shrimp" from hell that once ruled the seas of Earth a half billion years ago may have been a real softy, it turns out. A new 3-D modeling of the mouth parts of the Anomalocaris, along with evidence that these parts were not hard like teeth, but flexible, shows that the famed predator could not have been munching on the hard shells of trilobites and other such creatures of the early seas.What's more, there is no evidence from fossilized stomach contents...
Event of unknown origin occurred as first vertebrates tested landA mass extinction of fish 360 million years ago hit the reset button on Earth's life, setting the stage for modern vertebrate biodiversity. The mass extinction scrambled the species pool near the time at which the first vertebrates crawled from water towards land.Those few species that survived the bottleneck were the evolutionary starting point for all vertebrates--including humans--that exist today, according to results of a...
Deep under the Mediterranean Sea small animals have been discovered that live their entire lives without oxygen and surrounded by 'poisonous' sulphides. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology report the existence of multicellular organisms (new members of the group Loricifera), showing that they are alive, metabolically active, and apparently reproducing in spite of a complete absence of oxygen.Roberto Danovaro, from the Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy,...
Volcanic activity more than 200 million years ago may have helped dinosaurs become and remain the world's dominant species by causing the mass extinction of rivals, researchers claim in a recent study.The paper, which was completed by a five-person team of researchers from the United States and Taiwan and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), suggests that it was mass volcanic eruptions that wiped out the crurotarsans, the crocodile-like creatures that were...
