Mass Extinction

By Christian_Swaims12

  • Ordovician- Silurian Mass Extinction 443 years ago

    The third largest extinction in Earth's history, during the Ordovician, most life was in the sea, so it was sea creatures such as trilobites, brachiopods and graptolites that were drastically reduced in number. In all, some 85% of sea life was wiped out. An ice age has been blamed for the extinctions - a huge ice sheet in the southern hemisphere made climate change and a fall in sea lvl.

  • The Late Devonian Mass Extinction 359 million years ago

    By the late Devonian, the land had been colonized by plants and insects. In the oceans were massive reefs built by corals and stromatoporoids.The extinction seems to have only affected marine life. Hard-hit groups include brachiopods, trilobites, and reef-building organisms; the latter almost completely disappeared, with coral reefs only returning upon the evolution of modern corals during the Mesozoic.[3] The causes of these extinctions are unclear. Leading theories include changes in sea level

  • The Permian Mass Extinction 248 million years ago

    The Permian mass extinction has been nicknamed The Great Dying, since a staggering 96% of species died out. All life on Earth today is descended from the 4% of species that survived.. Marine creatures were particularly badly affected and insects suffered the only mass extinction of their history. Many causes have been proposed for the event: asteroid impact, flood basalt eruptions, catastrophic methane release, a drop in oxygen levels, sea level fluctuations or some combination of these.

  • Triassic Jurassic Mass Extinction 200 million years ago

    There were two or three phases of extinction whose combined effects created the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction event. Climate change, flood basalt eruptions and an asteroid impact have all been blamed for this loss of life. Many types of animal died out, including lots of marine reptiles, some large amphibians, many reef-building creatures and large numbers of cephalopod molluscs. Roughly half of all the species alive at the time became extinct. Strangely, plants were not so badly affected.