tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10092066.post6828778965782278136..comments2024-01-08T00:40:50.918-08:00Comments on The Dragon's Tales: Addressing YAGUMETsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10092066.post-91685086722208654182007-11-13T13:05:00.000-08:002007-11-13T13:05:00.000-08:00There's a sixth "mass extinction" that doesn't get...There's a sixth "mass extinction" that doesn't get much attention. That's because it's the mirror image of the other five: it happened very slowly, and we know exactly why it happened, but we have only a vague idea of what was lost.<BR/><BR/>I'm referring, of course, to the Antarctic glaciation.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Doug M.ExpatMomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10978064704311634736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10092066.post-26821475269141412932007-11-12T10:04:00.000-08:002007-11-12T10:04:00.000-08:00First off, mass extinction studies have only reall...First off, mass extinction studies have only really taken off since the late 1970s. The number of people working on this stuff is actually pretty small, all told, so there's limited resources. Excuses aside, there's also the sexiness factor. Killed off the dinos? VERY Sexy. Killed 0ff 90% of everything....now that the sexiest two are taken care of they are moving out and looking at the other three of the Big Five. Once those are done, I'd expect the lesser mass extinctions to get major attention.Will Bairdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07562404098136557872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10092066.post-83898289483416933902007-11-11T10:11:00.000-08:002007-11-11T10:11:00.000-08:00It's mildly surprising how little work has been do...It's mildly surprising how little work has been done on the most recent "middleweight" extinction, the Eocene-Oligocene. That's the one that got rid of, or sharply reduced, a lot of archaic mammalian families, resetting the system for the rise of a pretty much "modern" fauna in the second half of the Cenozoic. (It also had big effects on marine life, but benthic foraminifera are just not as exciting as creodonts and brontotheres.)<BR/><BR/>The prime suspect is global cooling, but there was also at least one bolide impact (the Chesapeake, which was only discovered in the 1980s). It seems to have been a two-stroke pulsed extinction, but the precise chronology is still being hammered out.<BR/><BR/>You'd think something just 33 mya would be easier to work with, and thus much better understood, than something 200+ mya. But that doesn't seem to be the case. It may just not have gotten the attention yet.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Doug M.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com