Tag Archives: Mass Extinction Event

12.12.20
by

Which Begs the Question…

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201211083113.htm

If you want to save time by not reading the link, the short story is, researchers have concluded that mass extinctions occur every 27 million years or so. Which, begs the question:

How long ago was the last mass extinction?

The graph plots percent extinction occurrences versus time in millions of years before present time, starting 550 million years ago. Extinction occurrences increase and decrease in a cyclical manner. At the lowest points on the cycle, extinction occurrences were between 2% and 5% percent. Spikes in the number of extinctions occurred at the end of geological periods: end-Ordovician, 450 million years ago; end-Devonian, 374 million years ago; end-Permian, 252 million years ago; end-Triassic, 200 million years ago; and end-Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. During these spikes, extinction occurrences approximately ranged from 22% to 50%.

If you will study this chart for a moment, indeed it appears every 25 million years, roughly, there is a definate uptick in extinctions. We can also extrapolate (if we ignore the slight uptick approximately 12 MYA, read the chart from right to left, zero is where we are now) that we are overdue.

Right now, given the state of the world, and the U.S. specifically. I’m not so sure it would be a bad thing. Let’s just have a do over!

Y’all stay safe out there. Thank science the covid vaccine will soon be available. Just in time for our extinction event 😉