MASS EXTINCTIONS

3/21 B-BAT: EXPLAIN THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION IN THEIR OWN WORDS Do Now! What mass extinctions do you know of? How did those animals go extinct?

MASS EXTINCTION Mass extinctions are periods in Earth's history when unusually large numbers of species die out simultaneously or within a limited time frame

MASS EXTINCTION There have been FIVE mass extinctions in the history of earth Are we currently going through a sixth?

CREATE A CHART IN YOUR NOTEBOOK NameNumberYearCauses

ORDOVICIAN– SILURIAN EXTINCTION First Mass Extinction Occurred ~439 million years ago Caused for this extinction include Fluctuations in sea level extensive glaciations global warming

ORDOVICIAN– SILURIAN EXTINCTION Approximately 25% of the families and nearly 60% of the genera of marine organisms were lost

LATE DEVONIAN EXTINCTION 2 nd Extinction ~364 million years ago Global cooling after large exploding meteor impacts may have been responsible

LATE DEVONIAN EXTINCTION 22% of marine families 57% of marine genera including nearly all jawless fishes

PERMIAN – TRIASSIC EXTINCTION 3 rd Extinction (THE GREAT DYING) ~251 million years ago Causes are debated The leading candidate is flood volcanism This led to profound climate change The volcanism may have been initiated by a meteor impact

95% of all species (marine as well as terrestrial) were lost, including 53% of marine families, 84% of marine genera, and 70% of land plants, insects, and vertebrates PERMIAN– TRIASSIC EXTINCTION

END TRIASSIC EXTINCTION 4 th Extinction ~199–214 million years ago Opening of the Atlantic Ocean by seafloor spreading related to massive lava floods that caused significant global warming

Marine organisms were most strongly affected 22% of marine families and 53% of marine genera were lost But terrestrial organisms also experienced much extinction

CRETACEOUS– TERTIARY EXTINCTION 5 th Extinction ~65 million years ago Causes are debated A giant asteroid impact in the Gulf of Mexico Climatic changes resulting from volcanic floods in India

16% of families, 47% of genera of marine organisms, and 18% of vertebrate families were lost CRETACEOUS– TERTIARY EXTINCTION

THINK – PAIR - SHARE Close your notebooks Turn to your partner List the five mass extinctions and name some of their characteristics

THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION Currently happening right now Named Anthropocene It is estimated there are 5 to 30 million living species on Earth Humans have accelerated, over the past 200 to 300 years, global species extinction rates 100 to 1,000 times Earth’s historical geological background rate

Currently threatened with extinction 12% of birds, 23% of mammals, 32% of amphibians, 52% of cycads (a group of evergreen palm like plants), and 25% of conifers In the last several decades, 20% of Earth’s coral reefs have been degraded and another 20% destroyed THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION

Only 44,838 of Earth’s 1,642,189 described species have been assessed in terms of conservation status by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Over 1/3 (i.e., 16,928 species) of the 44,838 species on the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction

Based on the trends of nearly 5,000 populations of 1,686 species of mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, and fish, a 30% decline in biodiversity has been observed from 1970 to 2005

At present, over half of Earth’s tropical humid forests have been destroyed and countless undiscovered species lost. At the current deforestation rate, it is estimated the remaining tropical humid forests and the species they contain will be destroyed by 2060

(1 ) the spread of invasive species and genes (2) overexploitation of species (3) habitat modification, fragmentation, and destruction (4) pollution (5) climate change

SPECIES THAT HAVE GONE EXTINCT

THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES

We need to look at the two main factors causing global environmental degradation: (1) the current size of the human population and (2) the current natural-resource consumption rate of the human population.