There's been more than 5 mass extinctions and I still do not know why main stream science still clings to 5. I think it might be that science advances one death at a time deal, because it's no secret. For example:
*Newly discovered mass extinction event triggered the dawn of the dinosaurs*
Published: September 16, 2020
.
"Huge volcanic eruptions 233 million years ago pumped carbon dioxide, methane and water vapour into the atmosphere. This series of violent explosions, on what we now know as the west coast of Canada, led to massive global warming. Our new research has revealed that this was a planet-changing mass extinction event that killed off many of the dominant tetrapods and heralded the dawn of the dinosaurs."
This was published 4 years ago, yet I still here scientists say 5 mass extinctions have occurred.
That first paragraph should look familiar because it's the type(hothouse) of most mass extinctions and many lesser extinctions and loading the atmosphere with increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses it's what the humans are currently doing. Volcanism vs a rapacious and clever ape digging up and burning the carbon makes no big difference. The physics and chemistry and effect of the climate are basically the same.
"pumped carbon dioxide, methane and water vapour into the atmosphere."
Hothouse extinctions via volcanism (volcanic traps) puking out greenhouse gasses are the norm on this planet. Some scientists are still debating whether volcanism from the Deccan traps contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. It's a tough sell to a public that has 100 cartoon images of a big dinosaur looking up as a big asteroid with a flaming tail comes crashing down to earth embedded in their brains. I've witnessed a number of guys lose their shit arguing that volcanism played no part. Why so emotional ???weird.
There is another claimed mass extinction from 2021 that is significant, but does not appear to meet the strictest definition of mass extinction which I have heard is at least 75% of life on land and sea. This one is different in that it is not hot house and looks to be regional.
*Previously Unknown Mass Extinction Occurred 30 Million Years Ago in Africa and Arabia*
Oct 8, 2021
Nearly 63% of Afro-Arabian mammalian species went extinct approximately 30 million years ago (Oligocene epoch), after Earth’s climate shifted from swampy to icy.
"By gathering data on hundreds of fossils from multiple sites in Africa, they were able to build evolutionary trees for these groups, pinpointing when new lineages branched out and time-stamping each species’ first and last known appearances.
Their results show that all five mammal groups suffered huge losses around the Eocene-Oligocene boundary.
“It was a real reset button. After a few million years, these groups start popping up again in the fossil record, but with a new look,” Dr. de Vries said."
Lastly, I came across this last year and was - WTF??
~
*19 'mass extinctions' had CO2 levels we're now veering toward, study warns*
The research looked at peaks in biodiversity loss and their relationship with atmospheric CO2, finding 50 events over the last 534 million years that can be considered mass extinctions.
Within a human lifetime, concentrations of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere could reach levels associated with 19 "mass extinctions" that have taken place in the last 534 million years, new research suggests.
By 2100, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could rise to 800 parts per million by volume (ppmv) — almost double the concentration of roughly 421 ppmv recorded this year — if we fail to curb emissions from burning fossil fuels and converting land for agriculture.
That would be edging close to the average CO2 concentrations (870 ppmv) associated with huge crashes in marine biodiversity over the last 534 million years, according to a study published June 22 in the journal Earth's Future. These extinction events are preserved in the fossil record, allowing scientists to plot how biodiversity and atmospheric CO2 evolved throughout Earth's history.
"The relationship between carbon dioxide in the past and extinction in the past gives us a kind of yardstick that we can apply to the present," study author William Jackson Davis, a biologist and president of the non-profit Environmental Studies Institute in Santa Cruz, California, told Live Science.
*CO2 and extinction move in tandem*
In the new study, Davis found that CO2 concentrations oscillate with marine biodiversity in the fossil record.
"When carbon dioxide goes up, extinction goes up, and when carbon dioxide goes down, extinction goes down," he said. Davis then used this relationship to estimate biodiversity loss under current atmospheric conditions.
I'm not trying to put anyone down. I'm kinda confused because there appears to be multiple definitions for a 'Mass Extinction'. Moreover, the findings only makes the situation and human future all the more dire. Perhaps we should call the Carbon cycle the Extinction cycle?
Here's a couple of articles related to my last comment.
Climate change caused by volcanic eruptions may have played a role in massive die-offs for the dinosaurs - long before a comet or asteroid impact sealed their fate.
Volcanoes
Climate change caused by volcanic eruptions may have played a role in massive die-offs for the dinosaurs - long before a comet or asteroid impact sealed their fate.
Evidence: Western India is home to the Deccan Traps–a huge, rugged plateau that formed when molten lava solidified and turned to rock. The Deccan Traps date back to around 66 million years ago, when magma from deep inside Earth erupted to the surface. In some parts of the Deccan Traps, the volcanic layers are more than two kilometers (1.2 miles) thick, making this the second-largest volcanic eruption ever on land.
Interpretation: Volcanic activity of this magnitude would have spewed out huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing greenhouse warming. The eruptions would have also caused levels of toxic gases like sulfur and chlorine to rise, resulting in acid rain and further damaging the global environment.
Conclusions: The Deccan Traps eruptions could have caused some global climate change. Ash and dust may have blocked sunlight, causing temperatures to drop. Over time, the climate would have warmed as a result of higher levels of greenhouse gases. Some researchers think that intense volcanism could have contributed to the dinosaurs' decline well before a comet or asteroid impact sealed their fate.
Solid as a Rock
This chunk of rock from the Deccan Traps in western India was once molten lava that erupted from deep inside Earth around 66 million years ago. Intense volcanic activity around this time may have caused long-term global warming by injecting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
*Deccan Volcanism caused the mass extinction 66 million years ago*
"Multiple evidence reveals the killing mechanism for the mass extinction 66 m.y. ago began 25,000 years earlier with the onset of cataclysmic Deccan volcanic eruptions in India that caused hyperthermal warming, mercury toxicity, ocean acidification and acid rain on land. Once the tipping point for life was reached, the mass extinction occurred within less than 1000 years correlative with accelerated maximum volcanic eruption, maximum mercury fallout globally, as documented in Tunisia and Israel, and the longest known lava flows that traversed over 1000 km across India. Age control is based on U-Pb dating of the Deccan Traps and correlated with orbital cyclicity at the Elles section in Tunisia, which yielded the highest age resolution possible to date. Our database reveals Deccan volcanism as primary cause for the mass extinction. Recent claims that the Chicxulub impact caused the mass extinction during global cooling and in the absent of Deccan eruptions are not substantiated and based on incomplete deep-sea records with common erosion/hiatus across the mass extinction."
I agree with all of it, and would add some comments:
In the last few years we have seen the research and science go from 'Under 1.5* until around 2100, and AMOC won't be an issue for at least 100 years' to 'We just passed 1.5*, en route to 3* and mass extinction, and AMOC is turning off, perhaps by 2037'
In other words the crises are accelerating, the opportunity for action has passed, and the outcomes are even more unsurvivable.
Secondly, you mention previous CO2 crises caused by volcanic action. For a long time I have assumed that increased air and water temperatures MUST cause expansion of the Earth's tectonic plates. Many people understand that the influence of the moon and sun cause the tides in the seas, but don't realise that the Earth's surface also has 'tides', and rises and falls up to a metre, flexing the tectonic plates and joints each day. As the Earth and seas warm, and the plates expand, surely that must eventually increase volcanic and earth quake activity? And might that become another, unexpected, trigger event for massively increasing CO2 in the atmosphere?
Lastly, methane clathrates under shallow seas. The quantities are said to be huge, and held in place by cold water and high pressure. A combination of warming seas and tectonic or earthquake activity has the potential to destabilise these methane clathrates, again an unregistered source of massively increasing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
I suppose the point of all this is that almost all the news is negative; shorter timelines, greater impacts, worse outcomes. The only glimmer to me is that if/when AMOC turns off, the north Atlantic artic might refreeze, increasing albedo and refreezing the tundra trapping methane. Perhaps even triggering what the planet Earth actually needs to rebalance itself - a new ice age.
None of which bodes well for humans, and even less for Western economies. If humans do survive all this, they are likely to be those humans that currently live the most basic, self sufficient, resilient community life far away from Westernised countries and technologies. And weaponry.
And I do wonder if part of Trump and Musk's ideology and intention is to try to ensure that it is white Americans that survive the inevitable collapse. A fortress America, white supremacist, closed borders, self sufficient, with Musk's space colonies to mine off-planet resources and human colonies to 'seed the universe'. Quite amusing if it is, as the one culture that has most driven the destruction of this planet Earth, the only planet ever found to support complex life, might be the one culture to spread off this planet!
Humans really WILL then became a virus of universal destruction!
There's been more than 5 mass extinctions and I still do not know why main stream science still clings to 5. I think it might be that science advances one death at a time deal, because it's no secret. For example:
*Newly discovered mass extinction event triggered the dawn of the dinosaurs*
Published: September 16, 2020
.
"Huge volcanic eruptions 233 million years ago pumped carbon dioxide, methane and water vapour into the atmosphere. This series of violent explosions, on what we now know as the west coast of Canada, led to massive global warming. Our new research has revealed that this was a planet-changing mass extinction event that killed off many of the dominant tetrapods and heralded the dawn of the dinosaurs."
https://theconversation.com/newly-discovered-mass-extinction-event-triggered-the-dawn-of-the-dinosaurs-146248
This was published 4 years ago, yet I still here scientists say 5 mass extinctions have occurred.
That first paragraph should look familiar because it's the type(hothouse) of most mass extinctions and many lesser extinctions and loading the atmosphere with increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses it's what the humans are currently doing. Volcanism vs a rapacious and clever ape digging up and burning the carbon makes no big difference. The physics and chemistry and effect of the climate are basically the same.
"pumped carbon dioxide, methane and water vapour into the atmosphere."
Hothouse extinctions via volcanism (volcanic traps) puking out greenhouse gasses are the norm on this planet. Some scientists are still debating whether volcanism from the Deccan traps contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. It's a tough sell to a public that has 100 cartoon images of a big dinosaur looking up as a big asteroid with a flaming tail comes crashing down to earth embedded in their brains. I've witnessed a number of guys lose their shit arguing that volcanism played no part. Why so emotional ???weird.
There is another claimed mass extinction from 2021 that is significant, but does not appear to meet the strictest definition of mass extinction which I have heard is at least 75% of life on land and sea. This one is different in that it is not hot house and looks to be regional.
*Previously Unknown Mass Extinction Occurred 30 Million Years Ago in Africa and Arabia*
Oct 8, 2021
Nearly 63% of Afro-Arabian mammalian species went extinct approximately 30 million years ago (Oligocene epoch), after Earth’s climate shifted from swampy to icy.
"By gathering data on hundreds of fossils from multiple sites in Africa, they were able to build evolutionary trees for these groups, pinpointing when new lineages branched out and time-stamping each species’ first and last known appearances.
Their results show that all five mammal groups suffered huge losses around the Eocene-Oligocene boundary.
“It was a real reset button. After a few million years, these groups start popping up again in the fossil record, but with a new look,” Dr. de Vries said."
https://www.sci.news/paleontology/eocene-oligocene-mass-extinction-10148.html
Lastly, I came across this last year and was - WTF??
~
*19 'mass extinctions' had CO2 levels we're now veering toward, study warns*
The research looked at peaks in biodiversity loss and their relationship with atmospheric CO2, finding 50 events over the last 534 million years that can be considered mass extinctions.
Within a human lifetime, concentrations of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere could reach levels associated with 19 "mass extinctions" that have taken place in the last 534 million years, new research suggests.
By 2100, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could rise to 800 parts per million by volume (ppmv) — almost double the concentration of roughly 421 ppmv recorded this year — if we fail to curb emissions from burning fossil fuels and converting land for agriculture.
That would be edging close to the average CO2 concentrations (870 ppmv) associated with huge crashes in marine biodiversity over the last 534 million years, according to a study published June 22 in the journal Earth's Future. These extinction events are preserved in the fossil record, allowing scientists to plot how biodiversity and atmospheric CO2 evolved throughout Earth's history.
"The relationship between carbon dioxide in the past and extinction in the past gives us a kind of yardstick that we can apply to the present," study author William Jackson Davis, a biologist and president of the non-profit Environmental Studies Institute in Santa Cruz, California, told Live Science.
*CO2 and extinction move in tandem*
In the new study, Davis found that CO2 concentrations oscillate with marine biodiversity in the fossil record.
"When carbon dioxide goes up, extinction goes up, and when carbon dioxide goes down, extinction goes down," he said. Davis then used this relationship to estimate biodiversity loss under current atmospheric conditions.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/19-mass-extinctions-had-co2-levels-were-now-veering-towards-study-warns
~
I'm not trying to put anyone down. I'm kinda confused because there appears to be multiple definitions for a 'Mass Extinction'. Moreover, the findings only makes the situation and human future all the more dire. Perhaps we should call the Carbon cycle the Extinction cycle?
Peace and thank you for your work.
Well done!!
Here's a couple of articles related to my last comment.
Climate change caused by volcanic eruptions may have played a role in massive die-offs for the dinosaurs - long before a comet or asteroid impact sealed their fate.
Volcanoes
Climate change caused by volcanic eruptions may have played a role in massive die-offs for the dinosaurs - long before a comet or asteroid impact sealed their fate.
Evidence: Western India is home to the Deccan Traps–a huge, rugged plateau that formed when molten lava solidified and turned to rock. The Deccan Traps date back to around 66 million years ago, when magma from deep inside Earth erupted to the surface. In some parts of the Deccan Traps, the volcanic layers are more than two kilometers (1.2 miles) thick, making this the second-largest volcanic eruption ever on land.
Interpretation: Volcanic activity of this magnitude would have spewed out huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing greenhouse warming. The eruptions would have also caused levels of toxic gases like sulfur and chlorine to rise, resulting in acid rain and further damaging the global environment.
Conclusions: The Deccan Traps eruptions could have caused some global climate change. Ash and dust may have blocked sunlight, causing temperatures to drop. Over time, the climate would have warmed as a result of higher levels of greenhouse gases. Some researchers think that intense volcanism could have contributed to the dinosaurs' decline well before a comet or asteroid impact sealed their fate.
Solid as a Rock
This chunk of rock from the Deccan Traps in western India was once molten lava that erupted from deep inside Earth around 66 million years ago. Intense volcanic activity around this time may have caused long-term global warming by injecting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dinosaurs-ancient-fossils/extinction/deccan-traps-volcanoes
~
*Deccan Volcanism caused the mass extinction 66 million years ago*
"Multiple evidence reveals the killing mechanism for the mass extinction 66 m.y. ago began 25,000 years earlier with the onset of cataclysmic Deccan volcanic eruptions in India that caused hyperthermal warming, mercury toxicity, ocean acidification and acid rain on land. Once the tipping point for life was reached, the mass extinction occurred within less than 1000 years correlative with accelerated maximum volcanic eruption, maximum mercury fallout globally, as documented in Tunisia and Israel, and the longest known lava flows that traversed over 1000 km across India. Age control is based on U-Pb dating of the Deccan Traps and correlated with orbital cyclicity at the Elles section in Tunisia, which yielded the highest age resolution possible to date. Our database reveals Deccan volcanism as primary cause for the mass extinction. Recent claims that the Chicxulub impact caused the mass extinction during global cooling and in the absent of Deccan eruptions are not substantiated and based on incomplete deep-sea records with common erosion/hiatus across the mass extinction."
https://geosciences.princeton.edu/news/deccan-volcanism-caused-mass-extinction-66-million-years-ago
Very good post. Thanks for putting this together.
I agree with all of it, and would add some comments:
In the last few years we have seen the research and science go from 'Under 1.5* until around 2100, and AMOC won't be an issue for at least 100 years' to 'We just passed 1.5*, en route to 3* and mass extinction, and AMOC is turning off, perhaps by 2037'
In other words the crises are accelerating, the opportunity for action has passed, and the outcomes are even more unsurvivable.
Secondly, you mention previous CO2 crises caused by volcanic action. For a long time I have assumed that increased air and water temperatures MUST cause expansion of the Earth's tectonic plates. Many people understand that the influence of the moon and sun cause the tides in the seas, but don't realise that the Earth's surface also has 'tides', and rises and falls up to a metre, flexing the tectonic plates and joints each day. As the Earth and seas warm, and the plates expand, surely that must eventually increase volcanic and earth quake activity? And might that become another, unexpected, trigger event for massively increasing CO2 in the atmosphere?
Lastly, methane clathrates under shallow seas. The quantities are said to be huge, and held in place by cold water and high pressure. A combination of warming seas and tectonic or earthquake activity has the potential to destabilise these methane clathrates, again an unregistered source of massively increasing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
I suppose the point of all this is that almost all the news is negative; shorter timelines, greater impacts, worse outcomes. The only glimmer to me is that if/when AMOC turns off, the north Atlantic artic might refreeze, increasing albedo and refreezing the tundra trapping methane. Perhaps even triggering what the planet Earth actually needs to rebalance itself - a new ice age.
None of which bodes well for humans, and even less for Western economies. If humans do survive all this, they are likely to be those humans that currently live the most basic, self sufficient, resilient community life far away from Westernised countries and technologies. And weaponry.
And I do wonder if part of Trump and Musk's ideology and intention is to try to ensure that it is white Americans that survive the inevitable collapse. A fortress America, white supremacist, closed borders, self sufficient, with Musk's space colonies to mine off-planet resources and human colonies to 'seed the universe'. Quite amusing if it is, as the one culture that has most driven the destruction of this planet Earth, the only planet ever found to support complex life, might be the one culture to spread off this planet!
Humans really WILL then became a virus of universal destruction!
Another great post. I'm curious about your thoughts on Project Drawdown.
Thanks! I'll have to look into it and get back to you
Here's an excellent 17 min Ted Talk. Highly recommended
https://youtu.be/D4vjGSiRGKY?si=sBzTkSoj2S0d5W_M