Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction is probably the most well-known extinction because it wiped out the dinosaurs, but there were many others in the history of earth. Recentyly, researchers from South Africa proposed that one of them was partically caused by rising mountains.
They refer to the mass extinction which happened roughly 260 million years ago at the end of the Capitanian period. This was an extinction that wiped out 75-80% of all land living animals.
The theory was developed from examing the teeths of the fossils. They found that the teeth contained chemicals implying that the environment became extremely arid around the time the extinction started. The puzzel was that there was no sign of increase in temprature, which was odd because aridity usually comes along with warmth. The researchers explaned this by the rising level of the landscape in South Africa's Cape Fold Mountains. These mountains became as tall as the Himalayas are today, enabling rising aridity and stable temperature to coinside.
It's still just a local sign of extinction, but the researchers are excited that it might be a part of global change in that period.
Some other mass extinction throughout the history occured in periods such as:
- Ordovician-Silurian: The third largest extinction happening over 400 million years ago. 85% of sea life was wiped out, and ice age has been blamed for the cause.
- Late Devonian: Happening over 350 million years ago, it wiped out 75% of all species on earth. Shallow sea area was most affected which took 100 million years for new corals to evolve. Multiple causes have been proposed.
- Permian: Nicknamed as the "Great Dying", 96% of the species dissapeared 250 million years ago. Ocean were severely damaged and even insects were hugely affected (it is the only mass extinction insects had experienced). Multiple causes have been proposed.
- Triassic-Jurassic: Happening over 200 million years ago, half the species died out. Somehow, plants were not that affected. Multiple causes have been proposed.
- Cretaceous-Tertiary: 65 million years ago, the era when dinosaurs died out. The decline started long before the asteroid fall, caused by flood basalt eruption combined with drastic falls in the sea level.
The interval between the five mass extinction is around 80 million years, and it has been 65 million years since the last one.... when would the next one come?