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New placement for one of Earth’s largest mass extinction events

Geology Page - November 20, 2020

Curtin University research has shed new light on when one of the largest mass extinction events on Earth occurred, which gives new meaning to...

The origin of endothermy in synapsids, including the ancestors of mammals. The diagram shows the evolution of main groups through the Triassic, and the scale from blue to red is a measure of the degree of warm-bloodedness reconstructed based on different indicators of bone structure and anatomy. Credit: Mike Benton, University of Bristol. Animal images are by Nobu Tamura, Wikimedia

Paleontology

World’s greatest mass extinction triggered switch to warm-bloodedness

Geology Page - October 17, 2020

Mammals and birds today are warm-blooded, and this is often taken as the reason for their great success. University of Bristol palaeontologist Professor Mike Benton,...

Summary of major extinction events through time, highlighting the new, Carnian Pluvial Episode at 233 million years ago. Credit: D. Bonadonna/ MUSE, Trento

Paleontology

Discovery of a new mass extinction

Geology Page - September 18, 2020

It's not often a new mass extinction is identified; after all, such events were so devastating they really stand out in the fossil record....

Roughly 66 million years ago an asteroid slammed into the Yucatan peninsula. New research shows darkness, not cold, likely drove a mass extinction after the impact. Credit: NASA

Fossils

Fossil Pollen Record Suggests Vulnerability to Mass Extinction Ahead

Geology Page - August 26, 2020

Reduced resilience of plant biomes in North America could be setting the stage for the kind of mass extinctions not seen since the retreat...

A team of researchers led by professor Brian Fields hypothesizes that a supernova about 65 light-years away may have contributed to the ozone depletion and subsequent mass extinction of the late Devonian Period, 359 million years ago. Pictured is a simulation of a nearby supernova colliding with and compressing the solar wind. Earth’s orbit, the blue dashed circle, and the Sun, red dot, are shown for scale. Graphic courtesy Jesse Miller

Paleontology

Exploding stars may have caused mass extinction on Earth, study shows

Geology Page - August 20, 2020

Imagine reading by the light of an exploded star, brighter than a full moon -- it might be fun to think about, but this...

URI graduate student Reilly Hayes (left) and undergraduate Amanda Bednarick examine an outcrop for fossils at Petrified Forest National Park as part of their research. Credit: Amanda Bednarick

Asteroid

Asteroid, climate change not responsible for mass extinction 215 million years...

Geology Page - May 28, 2020

A team of University of Rhode Island scientists and statisticians conducted a sophisticated quantitative analysis of a mass extinction that occurred 215 million years...

Researchers dated ash deposits from this hill, called a koppie in South Africa. The lower part of koppie Loskop exposes strata from before the end-Permian extinction (Palingkloof Member of the Balfour Formation), while the upper part contains layers deposited after the extinction (Katberg Formation). Credit: John Geissman

Paleontology

In Earth’s largest extinction, land die-offs began long before ocean turnover

Geology Page - March 26, 2020

The mass extinction at the end of the Permian Period 252 million years ago—one of the great turnovers of life on Earth—appears to have...

A reconstruction of Laurasichersis relicta which lived in the northen hemisphere 66 millons years ago. Credit: José Antonio Peñas (SINC)

Fossils

One single primitive turtle resisted mass extinction in the northern hemisphere

Geology Page - February 10, 2020

Sixty-six million years ago, in the emerged lands of Laurasia—now the northern hemisphere—a primitive land tortoise, measuring about 60 cm, managed to survive the...

A new study led by Yale University confirms a long-held theory about the last great mass extinction event in history and how it affected Earth's oceans. The findings may also answer questions about how marine life eventually recovered. Credit: Michael Henehan & Pincelli Hull

Paleontology

Mystery solved: Ocean acidity in the last mass extinction

Geology Page - October 23, 2019

A new study led by Yale University confirms a long-held theory about the last great mass extinction event in history and how it affected...

This photograph shows rocks from the Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay, Canada, from which doctoral candidate Malcolm Hodgskiss collected barite samples dating 2.02 to 1.87 billion years old. Credit: Malcolm Hodgskiss

Dinosaur

Ancient die-off greater than the dinosaur extinction

Geology Page - August 31, 2019

Clues from Canadian rocks formed billions of year ago reveal a previously unknown loss of life even greater than that of the mass extinction...

Volcanoes

New evidence suggests volcanoes caused biggest mass extinction ever

Geology Page - April 17, 2019

Biggest Mass Extinction Researchers say mercury buried in ancient rock provides the strongest evidence yet that volcanoes caused the biggest mass extinction in the history...

Paleontology

Evolution imposes ‘speed limit’ on recovery after mass extinctions

Geology Page - April 11, 2019

It takes at least 10 million years for life to fully recover after a mass extinction, a speed limit for the recovery of species...

Paleontology

In ancient oceans that resembled our own, oxygen loss triggered mass...

Geology Page - March 30, 2019

Roughly 430 million years ago, during the Earth's Silurian Period, global oceans were experiencing changes that would seem eerily familiar today. Melting polar ice...

Scientists are peeking into ancient oceans to unravel the complexities of mass extinctions, past and future.

Paleontology

Researchers uncover new clues to surviving extinction

Geology Page - March 19, 2019

Scientists are peeking into ancient oceans to unravel the complexities of mass extinctions, past and future. A new examination of Earth's largest extinction by...

Earth

Earth’s largest extinction event likely took plants first

Geology Page - February 2, 2019

Little life could endure the Earth-spanning cataclysm known as the Great Dying, but plants may have suffered its wrath long before many animal counterparts,...

This illustration shows the percentage of marine animals that went extinct at the end of the Permian era by latitude, from the model (black line) and from the fossil record (blue dots). A greater percentage of marine animals survived in the tropics than at the poles. The color of the water shows the temperature change, with red being most severe warming and yellow less warming. At the top is the supercontinent Pangaea, with massive volcanic eruptions emitting carbon dioxide. The images below the line represent some of the 96 percent of marine species that died during the event. Includes fossil drawings by Ernst Haeckel/Wikimedia; Blue crab photo by Wendy Kaveney/Flickr; Atlantic cod photo by Hans-Petter Fjeld/Wikimedia; Chambered nautilus photo by ©2010 John White/CalPhotos. Credit: Justin Penn and Curtis Deutsch/University of Washington

Paleontology

Biggest mass extinction caused by global warming leaving ocean animals gasping...

Geology Page - December 8, 2018

This illustration shows the percentage of marine animals that went extinct at the end of the Permian era by latitude, from...

A fossil tooth of a hippo (Hippopotamus amphibius) (left) and a fossil tooth of a white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) (right) , two of the few surviving megaherbivores, from the Late Pleistocene of western Kenya (left).

Paleontology

Human ancestors not to blame for ancient mammal extinctions in Africa

Geology Page - November 27, 2018

New research disputes a long-held view that our earliest tool-bearing ancestors contributed to the demise of large mammals in Africa over the last several...

Reconstruction of a living Mirarce eatoni perched on the horns of the ceratopsian dinosaur

Fossils

Rare fossil bird deepens mystery of avian extinctions

Geology Page - November 14, 2018

During the late Cretaceous period, more than 65 million years ago, birds belonging to hundreds of different species flitted around the dinosaurs and through...

An illustration of how the smaller mammals will have to evolve and diversify over the next 3-5 million years to make up for the loss of the large mammals.

Paleontology

Mammals cannot evolve fast enough to escape current extinction crisis

Geology Page - October 17, 2018

We humans are exterminating animal and plant species so quickly that nature's built-in defence mechanism, evolution, cannot keep up. An Aarhus-led research team calculated...