Ordovician-Silurian Extinction Essay
extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms (taxon), normally a species.
Ordovician-Silurian extinction, global extinction event occurring during the Hirnantian Age (445.6 million to 443.7 million years ago) of the Ordovician Period and the subsequent Rhuddanian Age (443.7 million to 439 million years ago) of the Silurian Period that eliminated an estimated 85 percent of all Ordovician species. This extinction interval ranks second in severity to the one that occurred at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods about 251 million years ago in terms of the percentage of marine families affected. The Ordovician-Silurian extinction was almost twice as severe as the K–T extinction event that occurred at the end …show more content…
In the seas a whole class (conodonts)[2] and 34% of marine genera disappeared.[3] On land, all large crurotarsans (non-dinosaurian archosaurs) other than crocodilians, some remaining therapsids, and many of the large amphibians became extinct.
The Cretaceous-Tertiary ExtinctionAlmost all the large vertebrates on Earth, on land, at sea, and in the air (all dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, and pterosaurs) suddenly became extinct about 65 Ma, at the end of the Cretaceous Period. At the same time, most plankton and many tropical invertebrates, especially reef-dwellers, became extinct, and many land plants were severely affected. This extinction event marks a major boundary in Earth's history, the K-T or Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, and the end of the Mesozoic Era. The K-T extinctions were worldwide, affecting all the major continents and oceans. There are still arguments about just how short the event was. It was certainly sudden in geological terms and may have been catastrophic by anyone's
Ordovician-Silurian extinction, global extinction event occurring during the Hirnantian Age (445.6 million to 443.7 million years ago) of the Ordovician Period and the subsequent Rhuddanian Age (443.7 million to 439 million years ago) of the Silurian Period that eliminated an estimated 85 percent of all Ordovician species. This extinction interval ranks second in severity to the one that occurred at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods about 251 million years ago in terms of the percentage of marine families affected. The Ordovician-Silurian extinction was almost twice as severe as the K–T extinction event that occurred at the end …show more content…
In the seas a whole class (conodonts)[2] and 34% of marine genera disappeared.[3] On land, all large crurotarsans (non-dinosaurian archosaurs) other than crocodilians, some remaining therapsids, and many of the large amphibians became extinct.
The Cretaceous-Tertiary ExtinctionAlmost all the large vertebrates on Earth, on land, at sea, and in the air (all dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, and pterosaurs) suddenly became extinct about 65 Ma, at the end of the Cretaceous Period. At the same time, most plankton and many tropical invertebrates, especially reef-dwellers, became extinct, and many land plants were severely affected. This extinction event marks a major boundary in Earth's history, the K-T or Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, and the end of the Mesozoic Era. The K-T extinctions were worldwide, affecting all the major continents and oceans. There are still arguments about just how short the event was. It was certainly sudden in geological terms and may have been catastrophic by anyone's