All five of Earth’s largest mass extinctions linked to global warming

New Scientist

Image:  VSmithUK

The second-most severe mass extinction in Earth’s history may have been triggered by global warming. The discovery means that, for the first time, all of the largest known extinctions can be linked to a rapid rise in the planet’s temperature.

“It completes the jigsaw puzzle in many ways,” says Andrew Kerr at Cardiff University, UK. Geologists recognise five points in time when huge numbers of species were wiped out, although recent research suggests at least one of these might have been too slow to be a mass extinction.

But the second-most severe of these five extinctions, the late Ordovician event about 445 million years ago, has always seemed different. The others coincided with epic volcanic activity that smothered millions of square kilometres with lava to create what is called a large igneous province. Read more on newscientist.com…