Newly Discovered Sixth Extinction Rivals That of the Dinosaurs

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.

Comments

Re:And the seventh mas extinction?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

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:The real extinction

[oodaloop]

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 is tantamount to saying we aren't changing the climate or evolution is not happening. You're either lying or illiterate. Or both.

Re:The real extinction

[buchner.johannes]

Try these?

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and

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