2 Mass Extinctions

Question 1

What are the 5 mass extinctions

Answer 1

End Ordovician 439mil yrs ago
Late Devonian 365 mil yrs ago
Permian Triassic 245 mil yrs ago
End Triassic 208 mil yrs ago
Cretaceous 65 mil yrs ago

Question 2

Proof of the Cretaceous mass extinction?

Answer 2

1 Chicxulub crater, is centred on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. 65 million-year-old iridium-rich clay found in dozens of locations across the globe is extremely rare on Earth, but common in meteorites. Furthermore, other rock samples from that era indicate an exposure to extreme heat and pressure, as would occur in an asteroid impact. This caused massive tidal waves and the huge blast wave and heatwave went out and it threw vast amounts of material up into the atmosphere which blocked sunlight.

2 An Indian subcontinent supposedly had volcanic eruptions that created the Deccan plateau (2,000 meters) of flat-lying basalt lava flows

Question 3

What caused Permian extinction

Answer 3

Scientists suspect that massive volcanic activity, in a large igneous province called the Siberian Traps, may have had a role in the global die-off, raising air and sea temperatures and releasing toxic amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over a very short period of time.

Australian scientists said they found 120-kilometre-wide crater in western Australia that might be from an impact that caused the Permian-Triassic extinction