Permian–Triassic extinction event

In her book The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert writes that there have been five mass extinctions in the history of planet earth. She asserts that currently the earth is on the precipice of a sixth mass extinction. In contrast with the previous five, according to Kolbert this sixth extinction is almost entirely caused by humans and our exploitation of the earth. In each of the book’s thirteen chapters, Kolbert highlights a particular species that is now extinct and analyzes the causes and…

asteroid that is roughly 10 kilometres across, hit Earth on the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. It caused a huge explosion and left a crater that is about 185 kilometres across. This asteroid impact is commonly known to be the reason for the extinction of three quarters of the dinosaurs. (4) The asteroid soared through the sky at more than 40 times the speed of sound. (6) The earth moves through space in its orbit around the sun at 107,000 kilometres per hour. This makes the…

alternative hypotheses that might have caused this mass extinction by explaining the main reasoning behind each of these premises. The author exposes the points of views of different scientists and geologists in regards to the death of the dinosaurs, which- somehow- remains one of the most heated and contested “battles in science”. Particularly, the paper explains the stance of one geologist from Princeton who is an advocate of a different dinosaur extinction theory. Dr. Keller and her team…

Era: The dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. The Mesozoic Era lasted about 180 million years, and is divided into three periods, the Triassic, the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous. Each of these periods is divided into many epochs and ages. Earth during the Mesozoic Era was much warmer than today, and the planet had no polar ice caps. During the Triassic Period, Pangaea still formed one massive supercontinent. Without much coastline to moderate the continent's interior temperature, Pangaea…

The Permian Period The Permian Period is the last one, after the Carboniferous Period, of the Paleozoic Era lasting for about 46 to 47 million years from 299-252 million years ago (mya) (Smith 2011). One major feature of this period is the formation of the supercontinent, Pangaea which affected the environment and the climate as well which gave rise to new species. Another distinct feature is the greatest mass extinction event which killed around 54% of all marine families and most of the…

Dinosaurs In The Jurassic Time Period By: David Wallace This project is going to be based on some of the dinosaurs in the Jurassic Time Period and it will give information about that dinosaur as well. Vertebrates taking to the air like the pterosaurs and the first birds. This was the Jurassic Period, 199.6 to 145.5 million years ago, a 54-million-year chunk of the Mesozoic Era. Air, land, or sea, dinosaurs came in all shapes and sizes in many different places around the world. The first…

According to the theory of natural selection, the Sauropods 's long neck is an adaptation for browsing high vegetations. Also, their long neck was also adapted for a large feeding envelope because they need to hold their food while moving from one tree to another. Their huge body is used to store food too. Sauropods ' bodies are big because they have a large digestive tract to store food inside until they get to the next vegetation area as well. The sauropods ' bodies were also used to scare…

The MIT and princeton researchers used high precision geochronology to determine the age of rocks on the so called deccan traps. To evaluate whether the extinction happened before or after the volcanic eruptions. The researchers collected more than 50 samples of rocks from that certain region in india to record data, Fortunately, samples from both the bottom and top of this volcanic layer contained zircon…

study current life and potential trends for future evolutionary traits. Evaluating certain aspects of the theory’s within this research, the main focus will be not be on the factual cause of the extinction, but rather the circumstances, how one could play into the other; could have led to their extinction. This research will provide, compare and contrasts the theories of dinosaur ex-tinction during the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary. The postulated and most plausible…

Silurian extinction This extinction happened about 439 million years ago because of a drop in sea levels as glaciers formed. An ice age has been blamed for the cause of the extinctions. A large ice sheet in the southern hemisphere caused climate change and a decrease in sea levels. A combination of this lowering of sea level caused a reduction in ecospace on continental shelves, and the cooling caused by the glaciation itself are some of the big factors for the Ordovician mass extinction. This…