Deciphering mass extinction triggers

Improved radioisotope dates help to illuminate the causes of mass extinctions Five mass extinction events have punctuated the evolution of life on Earth, each reshaping the biosphere by ending the success of an overwhelming proportion of species and creating ecological space for organisms that later...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2019-02, Vol.363 (6429), p.815-816
Main Author: Burgess, Seth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropogenic factors
Biological evolution
Biosphere
Cretaceous
Environmental changes
Extinction
Mass extinctions
Paleogene
PERSPECTIVES
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Summary:Improved radioisotope dates help to illuminate the causes of mass extinctions Five mass extinction events have punctuated the evolution of life on Earth, each reshaping the biosphere by ending the success of an overwhelming proportion of species and creating ecological space for organisms that later inhabited the planet ( 1 ). Knowledge of the cause or causes of these events can inform understanding of how the biosphere responds to dramatic environmental change and can help to validate hypotheses about probable outcomes of anthropogenic changes. The nuanced interplay between the climate and ocean systems and the organisms that depend on them is preserved in the rock record for past mass extinctions. Reports by Sprain et al. ( 2 ) and Schoene et al. ( 3 ) on pages 866 and 862, respectively, of this issue focus on the cause of what is perhaps the most infamous of these mass extinctions, the K-Pg extinction, which marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods on the geologic time scale.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.aaw0473