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Posts treating: "mass extinction"

Tuesday, 26 April 2016

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Maniraptoran Dinosaurs Show No Decline In Disparity Before Mass Extinction 

Reporting on a Revolution [2016-04-26 18:03:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (203 visits) info
Its hard to unravel and unpack complex phenomenon like patterns of faunal turnover during mass  extinctions. The methods chosen, the materials (fossils) available for study and the granularity of the study influences the results. My last post was about a modeling study that concluded that for 40 million years before the mass extinction,  extinction rates exceeded the evolution of new species

Which palaeontology stories in 2015 captured the public’s imagination? 

Green Tea and Velociraptors [2016-01-04 17:22:55]  recommend  recommend this post  (210 visits) info

 Jurassic
This was originally posted here! Happy New Year everyone! It’s that time of year when all the summaries of an amazing year of research are coming out, and goodness, what a year it’s been! The folk over at Altmetric have been kind enough to summarise the top 100 articles of 2015, measured by their altmetrics scores – a measure of the social media chatter around articles. All the data are available on Figshare, and here I just wanted to highlight the palaeontology stories that [...]

Quote: Stephen Jay Gould On Paleontology 

Reporting on a Revolution [2015-11-09 07:47:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (105 visits) info
This study of periodicity of mass extinction was published last month- Periodic impact cratering and extinction events over the last 260 million years - Michael Rampino and Ken Caldiera.   The claims of periodicity in impact cratering and biological extinction events are controversial. A newly revised record of dated impact craters has been analyzed for periodicity, and compared with

Molecular clocks and the End-Permian mass extinction 

Green Tea and Velociraptors [2015-09-11 12:25:22]  recommend  recommend this post  (212 visits) info

 Triassic,Permian; CH,US,FR,NL,RU,GB
Earth’s history is punctuated by extreme events known as mass extinctions. The End-Permian extinction, 252 million years ago, is believed to be the biggest, killing 90 % or more of all species – no wonder it is also called “The Great Dying”. The big question out there is to understand what caused it, but it is a challenge to get the complete picture of an event so long ago in prehistory. We know that the Siberian Traps (the enormous field of volcanic rock that lies in Siberia) were [...]

The Dicynodon-Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone Boundary May Not Approximate the Marine-Defined Permo-Triassic Extinction Event 

Chinleana [2015-08-30 02:41:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (712 visits) info

 Triassic,Permian; GB,ZA,PH
Wow, well this should definitely generate some discussion and a bit of research....  Gastaldo, R. A., Kamo, S. L., Neveling, J., Geissman, J. W., Bamford, M., and C. V. Looy. 2015 Is the vertebrate-defined Permian-Triassic boundary in the Karoo Basin, South Africa, the terrestrial expression of the end-Permian marine event? Geology (Advanced Online). doi: 10.1130/G37040.1 Abstract:

Geosonnet 29 

Lounge of the Lab Lemming [2015-06-02 16:31:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (116 visits) info
The scent from Madagascar’s fine perfume Enhances ice cream, fragrances the bath Beyond this orchid spice a shadow looms: A mass extinction’s lethal aftermath. When sulfur, carbon oxidize in air A surplus of ionic hydrogen In rain burns plants, and leaches soil bare Wrecked ecosystems cannot rise again. Vanillin burns as microbes decompose At high pH, vanillic acid’s made. With only aldehyde,

How fast was the demise of the dinosaurs? 

Green Tea and Velociraptors [2015-02-02 11:11:50]  recommend  recommend this post  (107 visits) info

 Cretaceous; GB,US,IN,MX,
It’s dark. It’s always dark these days. Lights in the sky burn your eyes, so you keep your face to ground in the hopes that they’ll go away. But they don’t. The air is heavy. Heavy with poisons that make it difficult to breathe. Heavy with foreboding dread. You, my unfortunate friend, are going through a mass extinction! There have been five periods of mass extinction in the past. These represent major phases in the history of life where we see global reorganisations of ecosystems and [...]

An updated geological timeline for the extinction of the dinosaurs 

AGU Meetings [2014-12-17 18:03:10]  recommend  recommend this post  (186 visits) info

 Paleogene,Cretaceous; MX
The asteroid that smashed into the Yucatan Peninsula a little more than 66 million years ago left behind the Chicxulub crater, but it also left behind something else: iridium, a rare element, which settled in a fine layer all over the world. When scientists discovered this layer between rock strata in the 1980s, it eventually led them to the crater as well, and an explanation for the disappearance of the dinosaurs. But on either side of that layer, which serves as a geological boundary between [...]

The Anthropocene? 

Geology in the West Country [2014-10-26 12:54:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (670 visits) info

 DE
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If an alien civilisation lands, millions of years from now when humans are a distant memory, what will they find? Our cities will be long gone; our sturdiest monuments and greatest buildings will be dust. But if they bring a geologist with them, they may be able to read the story of our existence from the stones they walk on. In Berlin, recently, a group of scientists met to discuss just what that story will tell – and how important a story it is. Humans have existed in [...]

Meteorite Impact May Have Triggered Largest Pulse Of Deccan Basalt Eruptions 

Reporting on a Revolution [2014-10-21 18:03:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (146 visits) info
What caused the mass extinction 65 million years ago? a) It was a meteorite impact and the resulting environmental crises. b) No,  it was the Deccan basalt eruptions and the resulting environmental crises. c) It was both, the meteorite impact and the eruptions. The two mechanisms were distinct. One, a calamity from space and the other a gigantic eruption whose cause was from deep within

Marine Reptile’s Weird Body Armor a Sign of Life’s Great Recovery 

Laelaps [2014-05-15 21:01:45]  recommend  recommend this post  (92 visits) info
Nothing opens up the possibility for evolutionary oddballs to emerge quite like a mass extinction. The worst such

Volcanic eruptions bubbled beneath Earth’s largest extinction 

AGU Meetings [2013-12-12 23:38:27]  recommend  recommend this post  (40 visits) info
Long before the dinosaurs died off, the “Great Dying” killed nearly all life in the ocean, 70 percent of terrestrial animals and even insects. But this mass extinction more than 250 million years ago - Earth’s greatest natural disaster - is still a scientific mystery. Little evidence remains of why and when life on the planet crashed to this long

Permian Extinction Tied to Wilson Supercontinent Cycle Through Pangea Integration 

The Dragon’s Tales [2013-11-05 18:00:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (57 visits) info

 Permian
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Mass extinction and Pangea integration during the Paleozoic-Mesozoic transition Authors: YIN HongFu and SONG HaiJun Abstract: The greatest Phanerozoic mass extinction happened at the end-Permian to earliest Triassic. About 95% species, 82% genera, and more than half families became extinct, constituting the sole macro-mass extinction in geological history. This event not only

Evidence Bees Suffered Mass Extinction at KT/K-Pg Boundary 

The Dragon’s Tales [2013-10-25 18:00:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (72 visits) info

 Cretaceous
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First Evidence for a Massive Extinction Event Affecting Bees Close to the K-T Boundary Authors: Sandra M. Rehan, Remko Leys, and Michael P. Schwarz Abstract: Bees and eudicot plants both arose in the mid-late Cretaceous, and their co-evolutionary relationships have often been assumed as an important element in the rise of flowering plants. Given the near-complete dependence of bees

Evidence from Mongolian Paleontology Expedition Supports Biogenic Climate Change Causation for Late Devonian Mass Extinction 

The Dragon’s Tales [2013-10-10 23:00:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (608 visits) info

 Devonian
Members of a U.N.-sponsored research team with members from Appalachian State University’s Department of Geology have found evidence for catastrophic oceanographic events associated with climate change and a mass extinction 375 million years ago that devastated tropical marine ecosystems. “The Late Devonian mass extinction was one of the five largest mass extinction events in the history

Some Astronomers Won't Give Up: Periodicity & Mass Extinctions Rides Again 

The Dragon’s Tales [2013-09-24 22:00:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (114 visits) info
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Mass Extinction And The Structure Of The Milky Way Authors: 1. M. D. Filipović (a) 2. J. Horner (b,c) 3. E. J. Crawford (a) 4. N. F. H. Tothill (a) Affiliations: a. University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, NSW 1797, Australia b. School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia c. Australian Centre for Astrobiology, University

New Evidence of High Ocean Temperatures, Greatly Increased Hydrological Cycle At/After Permian Triassic Extinction 

The Dragon’s Tales [2013-08-21 18:00:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (83 visits) info

 Permian
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Palaeotethys seawater temperature rise and an intensified hydrological cycle following the end-Permian mass extinction Authors: 1. Martin Schobben (a) 2. Michael M. Joachimski (b) 3. Dieter Korn (a) 4. Lucyna Leda (a) 5. Christoph Korte (c) Affiliations: a. Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung, Invalidenstr 43, D-10115

PT Extinction Surviving Dicynodont Lineage Was Too Morphologically Conservative to Exploit New Niches 

The Dragon’s Tales [2013-08-14 18:00:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (73 visits) info
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Ancient mammal relatives cast light on recovery after mass extinction The study's findings are surprising as much research so far suggests that the survivors of mass extinctions are often presented with new ecological opportunities because the loss of many species in their communities allows them to evolve new lifestyles and new anatomical features as they fill the roles vacated by

Shark Week! 

Daily Fossil [2013-08-12 17:18:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (91 visits) info

 Cretaceous
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Shark Week's coming to the CFDC! For those of you who haven't gotten your fill of sharks from Discovery Channel's Shark Week, we're staging our own six-day event, complete with a new exhibit, shark activities for kids during Dino Day Camp, and special digs for shark fossils. We've been pretty busy setting everything up, and the final display is going to look pretty awesome; there's preserved sharks from the University of Manitoba, a microscope set up with slides of shark skin, and a giant [...]

Permian Triassic Impact Araguainha Impact Did Not Cause the Mass Extinction, But Left Its Mark 

The Dragon’s Tales [2013-07-22 21:00:00]  recommend  recommend this post  (72 visits) info

 Triassic
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Shaking a methane fizz: Seismicity from the Araguainha impact event and the Permian–Triassic global carbon isotope record Authors: 1. E. Tohver (a) 2. P.A. Cawood (a, b) 3. C. Riccomini (c) 4. C. Lana (d) 5. R.I.F. Trindade (c) Affiliations: a. School of Earth & Environment, University of Western Australia, Australia b. St. Andrews University, Scotland,
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