Chapters - Extrinctions

9 important questions on Chapters - Extrinctions

How many major mass extinctions have their been in the history of the Earth?

5.

What are the characteristics of the first m.e.e.?

  • 440 million years ago
  • life was concentrated in the seas and dominated by benthic marine organisms
  • wiped out more than 100 families of marine life, including approximately half of all genera
  • Ordivician–Silurian event

What are the characteristics of the second m.e.e.?

  • 365 million years ago
  • Land plants had begun to evolve at this time, and sharks and bony fishes appeared in the oceans
  • Extinctions were focused on marine organisms, particularly reef-building corals and other marine invertebrates
  • end-Devonian event
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What are the characteristics of the third m.e.e.?

  • 250 million years ago
  • wiping out 90% of all species
  • first to hit land species with major losses—more than half of all land species, mostly plants, were lost
  • Permian–Triassic or end-Permian extinction

What are the characteristics of the fourth me.e.?

  • 200 million years ago
  • affecting large terrestrial animals as well as plants and marine species
  • the end-Triassic event paved the way for the evolution of the dinosaurs by wiping out many large animals, mostly amphibians

What are the characteristics of the fifth m.e.e.?

  • 65 million years ago
  • dramatic in its abruptness and the thoroughness with which it eliminated all dinosaurs from the face of the planet
  • only the clade that evolved into modern birds would survive
  • Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary (abbreviated K–T following European spelling)

Where climate change is a contributing cause?

These same direct factors drive extinctions but are set in motion by forces outside the climate system, such as asteroid impacts or volcanic eruptions.

What are the characteristics of PETM?

The PETM was accompanied by a significant number of extinctions, including loss of perhaps half of all foraminiferan species in the oceans, and the sudden appearance of several land groups, including primates. The thermal maximum may have been caused by volcanism or release of methane hydrates from the sea floor.

Why are the interglacial periods not accompanied by extinctions events?

Species may be able to hold on through unfavorable climate, as long as favorable climate returns within a few thousand years.

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