Newly Discovered Sixth Extinction Rivals That of the Dinosaurs 93
sciencehabit writes Earth has seen its share of catastrophes, the worst being the 'big five' mass extinctions scientists traditionally talk about. Now, paleontologists are arguing that a sixth extinction, 260 million years ago, at the end of a geological age called the Capitanian, deserves to be a member of the exclusive club. In a new study, they offer evidence for a massive die-off in shallow, cool waters in what is now Norway. That finding, combined with previous evidence of extinctions in tropical waters, means that the Capitanian was a global catastrophe.
The real extinction (Score:5, Insightful)
The real sixth extinction is what man is doing to the planet right now. Species are going extinct at way higher than background rates, and we are largely to blame.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No.
There is a great lecture by Dr. Albert A. Bartlett on Youtube [youtube.com] about growth.
In the second part [youtube.com] around the 6 minute mark he presents a list of options.
I would say that he is reasonable pragmatic about it. Either we pick a way to limit population growth or nature selects a way for us.
In the long run it doesn't really matter what option we go for but there seem to be a short time benefit of choosing a less painful population reduction method.
I think the one child per family method is pretty good. It's not ve
Re:The real extinction (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
How are we going to implement the "one child per family" option in the places where the population is growing the fastest? Westerners have been trying and failing to teach denizens of the 3rd world to use condoms just to control the spread of disease! These places would be unable to implement or enforce such a policy and you know that any proposal to force population control on the third world, say by putting contraceptives in water supplies, would be roundly criticized as 'racism' and 'eugenics'.
We could
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Further, if humanity has die-offs, those die-offs will be concentrated in the areas that are having the most trouble
Re: (Score:2)
Go take a couple of graduate level courses in paleotaxonomy. Then perhaps an introductory course in logic.
Then get back to us.
Re: (Score:2)
Go take a couple of graduate level courses in paleotaxonomy. Then perhaps an introductory course in logic.
You need to have scraped your beak against the rock of Svithjod (which is currently a hundred miles high and a hundred miles wide) once every thousand years and wear it down to a nub before you are allowed to make the above argument.
Re:The real extinction (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The real extinction (Score:5, Interesting)
But creatures which weren't easy to drive extinct, due to numbers, longevity of the species, or widespread habitat, would also be more likely to leave fossils. So we also have that the fossils of the geological past come from species which are more likely to not be threatened by extinction than the usual species today.
Third, species have different meanings in modern and geological terms. Today, we can classify species based on subtle distinctions like behavior, coloration, habitat, and most important, DNA which usually are impossible to determine from fossil records. Fossil species on the other hand, are determined by rather crude morphology traits which can be fossilized. A fossil species is a much bigger grouping than a modern species.
So when you combine all these aspects, you get that extinction of a fossil species is a much bigger deal just on its own than extinction of a modern species and may represent in some cases the extinction of dozens of modern species.
I think a better measure here is extinction at the genus level. Genuses are more likely to have fossil records and we can speak of the relative decline of the number of genuses in a proposed extinction event.
When you do that, I don't think there is a serious comparison at the present between human-caused extinction and geological extinction events. I suspect most genus-level extinctions would be in large terrestrial animals, amphibians, and any genus of organisms particularly susceptible to local habitat destruction. You don't have large scale declines in the number of all land and sea genus-level organisms (which can be fossilized) as are present during major extinction events of the past.
Re: (Score:2)
I think a better measure here is extinction at the genus level. Genuses are more likely to have fossil records and we can speak of the relative decline of the number of genuses in a proposed extinction event.
Exactly. Mass extinctions are measured by the % loss of genera, not a species count.
(Along those same lines, very few people can name more than one dinosaur species, but they can name several genera.)
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
The evidence of man's mass extinction is so vast and well-documented, that I'm going to go ahead and say you haven't done a lick of research. Saying there's no evidence for the Holocene Extinction [wikipedia.org] is tantamount to saying we aren't changing the climate or evolution is not happening. You're either lying or illiterate. Or both.
Not really, it's just that the IUE has gotten together and as the last agenda of the conference had a vote and declared it as a "dwarf extinction" and not to be classified with the other classical extinctions. It seems that although it fit past definitions of extinctions, they decided to redefined them rather than be faced with too many extinctions they'd rather not talk about.
Re:The real extinction (Score:5, Informative)
Try these?
and
Doughty, C. E., A. Wolf, and C. B. Field (2010), Biophysical feedbacks between the Pleistocene megafauna extinction and climate: The first humaninduced global warming?,Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L15703, doi:10.1029/2010GL043985
Mason, Betsy (10 December 2003). "Man has been changing climate for 8,000 years". Nature. doi:10.1038/news031208-7.
MacPhee and Marx published their hyperdisease hypothesis in 1997. "The 40,000-year plague: Humans, hyperdisease, and first-contact extinctions." In S. M. Goodman and B. D. Patterson (eds), Natural Change and Human Impact in Madagascar, pp. 169–217, Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington DC.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, and smoking is supposedly bad for my health. I smoke 20 cigarettes/day, and I didn't die neither yesterday nor today.
Re: (Score:2)
At that rate of smoking, it would be a miracle if you did get cancer. You have to be up in the three packs a day range (60 ciggs) to even have a chance.
Re: (Score:2)
If by "right now" you mean the last 50,000 years, then yes. Its called the "Quaternary extinction event", but it is minor compared to the "Big 5".
Humans have wiped out the mega-fauna as they spread across the earth, though the SJW types refuse to believe that the noble traditional owners, first peoples and custodians could do such a thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
For those of the geological persuasion, 50 000 years is certainly 'right now'.
Re: (Score:2)
For those of the geological persuasion, 50 000 years is certainly 'right now'.
But it's not the same "right now" that includes driving cars.
Re: (Score:2)
For those of the geological persuasion, 50 000 years is certainly 'right now'.
But it's not the same "right now" that includes driving cars.
"Sez you!" - F. Flintstone
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry. Forgot the reference.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
The real sixth extinction is what man is doing to the planet right now. Species are going extinct at way higher than background rates, and we are largely to blame.
Nah. That would be the seventh extinction. We're getting good at causing these mass extinction events. And here we thought he had only laid waste to the earth 5 times. ;)
Re: The real extinction (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that would make the Holocene extinction number seven.
Re: (Score:2)
Science news from the media is usually really bad.
This is the new hypothesis that got some funding for additional research.
Let me know in 10 years on how it pans out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It's a new discovery in geological time.
Re: (Score:1)
Say, what an interesting language! You appear to be using the Roman alphabet and it almost looks like English! What gives?
And the seventh mas extinction? (Score:3, Insightful)
Must be now.
Re: (Score:2)
FTFA:
"Now, paleontologists are arguing that a sixth extinction, 260 million years ago, at the end of a geological age called the Capitanian, deserves to be a member of the exclusive club."
Wouldn't you like to member of an "exclusive club"?
Re:And the seventh mas extinction? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org]
The Holocene extinction, sometimes called the Sixth Extinction, is a name proposed to describe the currently ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (since around 10,000 BCE) mainly due to human activity.
The large number of extinctions span numerous families of plants and animals including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and arthropods. Although 875 extinctions occurring between 1500 and 2009 have been documented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, the vast majority are undocumented. According to the species-area theory and based on upper-bound estimating, the present rate of extinction may be up to 140,000 species per year.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
the vast majority are undocumented.
They're not "undocumented," they're illegal!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I hope you realize the subject was "undocumented extensions of species in the present era". Poe's law already? Slashdot is quick.
It was supposed to be a joke, son.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, that was weird. Some people can't take a joke. I can just picture him sitting at the breakfast table with his laptop and his morning beer, sticking his button everywhere so people can press it.
Re: (Score:2)
"Yes, they are ILLEGAL, not just "undocumented""
How can be a person Illegal? Acts can be illegal, not people.
Re: (Score:1)
I was there for the awful end
The bodies strewn in ashen piles
They told us this would keep us safe
And we never learned a thing.
Re: (Score:1)
Apparently you do not understand the meaning of "mass", as in all at once, as in "mass murder", not as "over a period of thousands of years. Maybe.".
Apparently you do not understand the meaning of "mass". It means pertaining to a large number. Time frame may be relevant in the context of any given usage of the word, but is not intrinsically linked.
Re: (Score:2)
Obesity, helping man evolve towards Dinosaur? (Score:1)
Of course to still be human, there will be a couple of long snouts that can suck up rocks to later spit out weapon style.
The long forgotten appendix won't be just hold backup stash of digestive bacteria, but will be a gland to grow kidney-stone-like bullets.
Will the one-percent club be listening to cannibal recipes on talk radio? Being of strong moral character, they will no-doubt have ethical issues over consuming choice muscular slaves.
"It's just so sinful to even think of taking the best from the labor
Re: (Score:2)
Face it. We're a virus with shoes.
-- Saint Hicks
Re: (Score:2)
Face it. We're a virus with shoes.
-- Saint Hicks
I believe that this geologic age will pass the tipping point at the Shoe Event Horizon.
-- Saint Adams
Re:Humans are the gross, worst spieces ever (Score:5, Insightful)
[Humans are] the worst disgusting and gross, leave their trash everywhere. They think all history was made in order for their own creation. They pollute everywhere they figure out how to get to.
Do not mistake the ineffectiveness of other animals to be "care" for their environment. A beaver will happily defoliate acres of land. Cats can depopulate entire species of birds, given the chance. Rabbits will breed far beyond the capacity of their environment to support their numbers. All of them will "pollute" as readily as man, leaving their waste wherever it may drop and not taking particular care to "clean up" after themselves when they are done using a burrow or nest. Certainly, they show no evidence of caring about other species; other animals are prey to be fed upon, or predator to be fled from, or other to be ignored but never a concern beyond that.
Humans aren't perfect, to be sure, but our problems are largely due to own success. Though we would believe ourselves somehow superior to the "lesser animals" with which we share the world, we are still moved by the same base impulses of our distant cousins. However, our cleverness with tools and our extreme adaptability means that we are more resistant to environmental repercussions with which the system uses to self-correct the actions of its more boisterous inhabitants. A wolf-pack that eats all the deer in its territory is likely to starve next winter, but Men will just move to a new territory or import food from its neighbors, and thus the genes of the "over-eaters" are preserved rather than culled. Alas, now that our territory encompasses the entire world it may require a worldwide disaster to rehabilitate Man.
But then again, maybe not. Because we are learning - however slowly it may seem - that not only are our resources not unlimited, but also that the Earth is a vast and interlocked system which we share with all the other species on the planet. This very concept of environmentalism is fairly new - a few hundred years at most and truly popular only for the last two or three generations - and prior to this Men took little concern to their depredations because they always thought there would be an endless supply so long as they moved to the next horizon. Now, we are reconsidering our actions - acting against the very instructions of our genetic make-up - working to preserve what we have. While it is not entirely without self-interest, nor is it entirely selfish; we preserve other species for no other reason than a belief that they have as much a right to exist on this planet as we do. That is more than any other species on Earth has done.
Our impact on this planet has been devastating, matched perhaps only by the impact of micro-organisms or the insect kingdom. But these mistakes are only because we follow our genetic predisposition to breed to capacity and do not believe for a moment that any other species on this planet would do any different. Certainly we should use our intellects to curb our innate predilections but neither should we entirely condemn ourselves.
Re: (Score:2)
Stone age cultures just didn't have the technology to do all that much.
What is 'commonly taught' is mythology, same as it's always been.
Stone age native cultures wiped out the Mammoth. Once the horse was introduced the warlike, raider cultures came to dominate their more peaceful neighbors.
Re: (Score:2)
It is commonly taught they took to hunting with much stewardship. Did they treat the land and environment as modern civilization does now, pushing the limits and then collectively realizing time to back off a little?
Lot's of things are taught. That doesn't make them true. The only real difference between then and now is that humanity has a larger impact on its environment.
Everything is bloody Star Wars (Score:1)
Come on, I can't be the only one to have read this at first as 'Sith Extinction'
Re: (Score:2)
You're not :)
I joined that exclusive club!
I can hardly wait!! (Score:2)
Some day --- finally! --- we will discover evidence of our own extinction.
Then --- finally! --- the human assimilation of knowledge will be complete.
Re: (Score:3)
It happened just after they developed systemd.
The proposed sixth extinction event happened some 250 million years ago. I don't think the Unix epoch covers that range of time.
Not really (Score:1)
"Earth has seen its share of catastrophes, the worst being the 'big five' mass extinctions"
I think that all those catastrophes are minor compared to the catastrophic impact event that created the moon.
Re: (Score:2)
"Earth has seen its share of catastrophes, the worst being the 'big five' mass extinctions"
I think that all those catastrophes are minor compared to the catastrophic impact event that created the moon.
How many species were rendered extinct by that event?
If it were to happen today, the answer would be 100%, as the rocky surface of the planet would be liquified. But to judge the size of a catastrophe solely by the number of extinct species is an arbitrary measure, one that ignores reality. For example, a supernova elsewhere, even if it doesn't result in any extinctions here, is still a larger catastrophic event.
Or say that a virus came out that killed 99% of the beings in every single species, but left a few survivors in every case. No extinctions, but cer
Global? (Score:2)
"In
Those seem like mutually exclusive ideas, Was it global or was it contained to a single tiny point?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Prehistoric Norway was much larger than it's modern counterpart
Once the seas teamed with huge Norways, but that was before over-norwaling
They must mean this... (Score:2)