Life During the Apocalypse (mass extinction)

Recommendable!

(624) Life During the Apocalypse - YouTube

Ice age hunters targeted female mammoths. Really!

No wonder mammoths are extinct! Caution satire! 

Were our hunter ancestors that stupid? I have some doubts. Maybe these mammoth accumulations were something like holy sites (what age were the female mammoth when they died or were killed?)? If these females were of older age, then they were perhaps past prime gestation age.

The study below does not seem to address the age at death of the female mammoths!

What is wrong with the use of the term "anthropogenic" in the title of the research paper below? Anthropogenic is a fairly new term that has become fashionable in recent times (e.g. in the context of environmental pollution, global warming/climate change demagoguery). It is also very much a lefty predilection! It also implies modern knowledge and science, which our hunter ancestors did not have!

"The term anthropogenic became popular during the 1950s to 1980s, shifting from a niche academic word into widespread use as public concern over global environmental changes and pollution grew." (Google Search)

"... Why ice age hunters preferred to take down female mammoths remains unclear. “While it is tempting to assume that hunters would have targeted females because they were smaller than adult males, the reality may have been more complex,” ... For instance, herds of females may have moved across the landscape more predictably than the wandering males, making them more reliable meals. The ancient humans “ ..."

From the highlights and abstract:

"Highlights

• Genetic sex determination of 521 woolly mammoths based on genome-wide data

• Naturally deposited mammoth remains are consistently biased toward males

• In contrast, 70% of remains in Upper Paleolithic mammoth accumulations are female

• This female bias suggests mammoth bone accumulations resulted from human exploitation

Summary

Whether large accumulations of woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) bones reflect natural mortality or deliberate human resource exploitation has long been debated, with major implications for understanding Late Pleistocene human-megafaunal interactions. 

Here, we use ancient DNA to investigate site-formation hypotheses by comparing genetic sex ratios from mammoth remains recovered in putative anthropogenic bone accumulations and from geographically dispersed, non-anthropogenic contexts.

We studied genome-wide data from 521 woolly mammoths—including 100 mammoths from bone accumulation sites and 421 mammoths from natural depositional settings across Eurasia and North America—of which 448 are newly generated.

Genetic sex determination reveals a striking contrast between contexts: mammoths from dispersed sites show a male bias (∼66.5%), which is consistent with the heightened vulnerability of solitary males to hazards such as natural traps, where bones are more likely to be preserved,

whereas mammoths from anthropogenic bone accumulations are predominantly female (∼70%). This female bias is pervasive across multiple sites, indicating an anthropogenic origin for these accumulations as a result of Upper Paleolithic hunters preferentially exploiting female mammoths, possibly derived from herd contexts.

Together, these results provide population-scale genetic evidence that highlights the central role of mammoths in the subsistence and material economies of some Paleolithic communities."

ScienceAdviser

Paleogenomic sex inference of mammoth remains sheds light on the anthropogenic [???] nature of bone accumulations (open access)

Figure 1 Excavation documentation for four bone accumulation sites and the geographical locations of the woolly mammoths analyzed in this study

Figure 3 Genetic sex ratios for the different woolly mammoth contexts analyzed in this study

Researchers confirm cause of Earth’s biggest mass extinction

Amazing stuff!

Unfortunately, Stanford University could not resist demagoguery by drawing parallels to today's climate change:

"... Warming today

The Stanford researchers plan to examine more marine animal groups to further understand the intertwined impacts of the three stressors of warming, lack of oxygen, and acidification, which are growing in severity today.

The researchers emphasize that history could well repeat itself, as changing ocean conditions threaten modern species that are vulnerable to warmer, oxygen-depleted waters. ..."

Today's warming is hardly comparable to what went on in the during the Permian–Triassic extinction event.

"In brief

• The Permian–Triassic extinction event, which killed off most life on Earth, did not impact all animal groups equally.
• In the oceans, groups of animals collectively called the Paleozoic fauna that had long dominated marine environments were almost completely wiped out, but the so-called modern fauna experienced far fewer extinctions and have dominated since.
• New research reveals that the warmer, poorly oxygenated oceans of the Permian–Triassic transition strongly favored the modern fauna’s faster metabolisms, while the Paleozoic fauna’s slow metabolisms could not keep up with increased oxygen demand triggered by the warming waters.

...

About 252 million years ago, 96% of marine species and 70% of land animals died off during the Permian–Triassic extinction event ...

for the first time incorporates biological responses of the animal groups that were decimated in the extinction and those that fared better. The groups hit hardest were those whose metabolisms could least tolerate warm, poorly oxygenated water. Such conditions prevailed throughout much of the world’s oceans as the Great Dying unfolded, caused by a surge of volcanic activity that released gargantuan amounts of planet-warming gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. ..."

From the significance and abstract:

"Significance

The well-established faunal turnover event between the Paleozoic fauna (e.g., brachiopods, crinoids) and the Modern fauna (e.g., clams, snails, urchins) coincided with intense global climate change of the latest Permian. We hypothesize that physiological differences in species vulnerability to temperature-dependent hypoxia explains this ecological transition. We test this hypothesis by performing physiological experiments on different taxonomic groups, dramatically increasing the amount of physiological data available for understudied but ecologically significant marine taxa. Simulations of extinction patterns guided by these traits show that ocean warming and deoxygenation together caused the taxonomic selectivity of the end-Permian mass extinction and resulting permanent shift in marine ecosystem composition. Similar selectivity patterns are expected in the modern biodiversity crisis due to similar environmental circumstances.

Abstract

The rapid global climate change at the end of the Permian Period (~251.9 Mya) coincided with the greatest macroevolutionary faunal turnover event in Earth’s history.

As the oceans warmed, lost dissolved oxygen, and became more acidic, the dominant animal groups in the Paleozoic fauna (including brachiopods and crinoids) suffered differentially high rates of extinction, allowing the Modern fauna (including bivalves and gastropods) to rise to ecological dominance.

The end-Permian kill mechanism(s) are not fully understood, but differences in extinction intensity among Linnaean classes suggest an important physiological component.

Here, we use a trait-based model of species’ metabolic O2 balance to demonstrate that temperature-dependent hypoxia can explain the taxonomic selectivity of the end-Permian mass extinction.

Direct respirometry experiments and physiological trait estimates derived from biogeographic data reveal that species belonging to the Paleozoic fauna have a higher temperature dependence of hypoxia than those belonging to the Modern fauna. In simulations of the climate transition, this trait difference leads to a greater loss of aerobic habitat for Paleozoic fauna, consistent with their observed greater extinction intensity.

These results demonstrate that differences in average physiological tolerances to environmental change across biogeography, taxonomy, and functional ecology drove end-Permian extinction patterns and could eventually characterize the modern biodiversity crisis.

Temperature-dependent hypoxia is the only kill mechanism that has been shown to explain the magnitude, biogeography, and now taxonomic selectivity of the end-Permian mass extinction, ultimately underlying the permanent shift in marine ecosystems across this transition."

Researchers confirm cause of Earth’s biggest mass extinction | Stanford Report "Stanford scientists have directly linked the disappearance of once-dominant marine groups to intolerable heat and diminished oxygen in ancient oceans."

Differences in physiological tolerance to global warming caused the Permian–Triassic transition between the Paleozoic and Modern faunas (no public access)

Traces of ancient seafloor cataclysms turn up in the Himalayas

Amazing stuff!

"High on the Tibetan Plateau, geologists have identified slivers of twisted and folded lava they say are the relics of immense volcanic eruptions more than 200 million years ago, on the floor of a vanished sea. The discovery provides a culprit for previously unexplained marine extinctions.

Such supereruptions, which can spew millions of cubic kilometers of magma and last for millions of years, have been linked with some of the largest mass extinctions in Earth’s history. Called large igneous provinces, they are easy to recognize when they occur on land because the lava plateaus they leave behind stick around for eons. However, because oceanic crust gets recycled relatively quickly back into the mantle, the evidence for marine supereruptions has mostly vanished. By identifying the landlocked traces of two vanished supereruptions, the new study ... fills out the history of these cataclysms—and adds to the evidence that oceanic supereruptions have shaped the history of life more than once thought. ..."

From the abstract:

"The trigger for frequent extinctions during the Phanerozoic remains a persistent and unresolved frontier issue in Earth sciences.

We present a detailed analysis of oceanic island, seamount, and plateau remnants in the Tibetan Plateau that trace the evolution of the Meso- and Neo-Tethys oceans, incorporating new and published data.

During the Triassic, three major episodes of marine large igneous provinces (LIPs) formed at 250−248 Ma, 233−231 Ma, and 210−208 Ma. By integrating geological records of these LIP episodes with Triassic geological data sets, we demonstrate a correlation between marine LIPs and at least four extinctions in marine biota, driven by the resultant anoxic-euxinic events.

Consequently, marine LIPs emerge as a primary driver of recurrent mass extinctions. Numerous previously unexplained extinctions throughout Earth’s history may potentially result from currently unidentified components of marine LIPs occurring as fragments within orogenic belts."

Traces of ancient seafloor cataclysms turn up in the Himalayas | Science | AAAS "Vast undersea eruptions may be undercounted source of extinctions through Earth’s history"

Key Drivers of Recurrent Extinction in the Triassic "New study in Geology links massive undersea volcanism to repeated marine extinctions"

Marine large igneous provinces: Key drivers of Triassic recurrent extinction (open access)

How Chewing May Have Beat mass Extinction about 66 million years ago

Recommendable!

How We Figured Out an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs

Recommendable! A good summary!

Chinese palaeontologists discover “life oasis” during worst ever mass extinction at end of Permian period

Maybe the mass extinctions were not so massive?

Maybe the recover took only less than 100,000 years instead of millions?

"The findings suggest the end-Permian extinction 252 million years ago did not affect terrestrial environments as much as marine ecosystems, challenging previous beliefs about the scale of the catastrophe. ..."

From the abstract:

"Searching for land refugia becomes imperative for human survival during the hypothetical sixth mass extinction. Studying past comparable crises can offer insights, but there is no fossil evidence of diverse megafloral ecosystems surviving the largest Phanerozoic biodiversity crisis.

Here, we investigated palynomorphs, plant, and tetrapod fossils from the Permian-Triassic South Taodonggou Section in Xinjiang, China. Our fossil records, calibrated by a high-resolution age model, reveal the presence of vibrant regional gymnospermous forests and fern fields, while marine organisms experienced mass extinction. This refugial vegetation was crucial for nourishing the substantial influx of surviving animals, thereby establishing a diverse terrestrial ecosystem approximately 75,000 years after the mass extinction. Our findings contradict the widely held belief that restoring terrestrial ecosystem functional diversity to pre-extinction levels would take millions of years. Our research indicates that moderate hydrological fluctuations throughout the crisis sustained this refugium, likely making it one of the sources for the rapid radiation of terrestrial life in the early Mesozoic."

Chinese palaeontologists discover “life oasis” during worst ever mass extinction at end of Permian period "Fossils found in China’s Turpan-Hami Basin reveal a refuge, or “life oasis”, for plants and animals during the Permian extinction – the worst mass extinction in Earth’s history."

Refugium amidst ruins: Unearthing the lost flora that escaped the end-Permian mass extinction (open access)

Fig. 1. Geological background of the STD Section.

Fig. 3. Results of palynological analysis of the upper part of the Wutonggou LC in the STD Section.

Fig. 5. Artistic reconstruction of the terrestrial ecological landscape during, before, and after the end of the Permian mass extinction

Asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was not alone, there was a second one with an estimated diameter of 500 meters

Recommendable! When will the next asteroid hit earth? This would then be a real climate crisis not the phony one were inundated with every day!

Did Dust Drive Dinosaurs to Extinction? with Palki Sharma

An interesting hypothesis! Just a reminder: Hit by a sizable asteroid is a real climate crisis not the phony one hear about every day!

Scientists Discover 380 New Species in Southeast Asia

The Great Extinction? What a rubbish! Propaganda and demagoguery!

Yes, perhaps certain rhinoceros are about to go extinct if we do not protect it or help it to reproduce.

We still do not even know what species e.g. live in our oceans!

"The 380 new species were found in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, known as the Greater Mekong region, in 2021 and 2022. "

Geckos, Orchids, and Snakes, Oh My: Scientists Discover 380 New Species in Southeast Asia

WWF report highlights 380 new species discoveries in the Greater Mekong region Conservation organization urges protection from shrinking habitats and wildlife trade

New Species Discoveries In The Greater Mekong Region 2021 & 2022

Credits: Human Progress Weekly Links

Large Asteroids expected to by-pass earth in coming days

This what I would call a real climate crisis if one of those large asteroids were to hit earth!

How (Some) Plants Survived The K-Pg Extinction

Very recommendable! Amazing stuff!

Fossilized pollen provides a glimpse at the end of the Permian extinction

Amazing stuff!

"Chemical clues in fossilized pollen grains suggest the world’s greatest mass extinction was a sunny affair ... As the Permian period gave way to the Triassic period about 250 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions in present-day Siberia triggered a cataclysmic combination of greenhouse gas emissions, widespread mercury pollution, and a host of other atmospheric disturbances. Yet the full picture remains murky, including the possibility that damage to the ozone layer may have cooked many of the species already struggling to survive concurrent calamities ...

To investigate, Fraser and his colleagues turned their attention to tiny grains of fossilized pollen from southern Tibet. This collection contains around 800 pollen grains that come from the ancient relatives of ferns and conifers—plant types which survived the extinction event—and date back to time points spanning the Permian-Triassic boundary period. The tough outer coating of the pollen grains not only helped them stand the test of time in the fossil record, but also preserved traces of para-coumaric acid and ferulic acid. These phenolic compounds absorb ultraviolet B light, which helped shield the pollen from harmful solar radiation. Using Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy, the researchers found that the abundance of UVB-absorbing compounds in their pollen-based chronology spiked around the same time as mercury and other signs of violent volcanic activity did. ..."

From the abstract:

"Land plants can adjust the concentration of protective ultraviolet B (UV-B)–absorbing compounds (UACs) in the outer wall of their reproductive propagules in response to ambient UV-B flux. To infer changes in UV-B radiation flux at Earth’s surface during the end-Permian mass extinction, we analyze UAC abundances in ca. 800 pollen grains from an independently dated Permian-Triassic boundary section in Tibet. Our data reveal an excursion in UACs that coincide with a spike in mercury concentration and a negative carbon-isotope excursion in the latest Permian deposits, suggesting a close temporal link between large-scale volcanic eruptions, global carbon and mercury cycle perturbations, and ozone layer disruption. Because enhanced UV-B radiation can exacerbate the environmental deterioration induced by massive magmatism, ozone depletion is considered a compelling ecological driver for the terrestrial mass extinction."

Fossilized pollen provides a glimpse of Earth’s broiling past UV-absorbing phenolic compounds preserved in pollen grains point to powerful radiation during the Permian extinction

Dying in the Sun: Direct evidence for elevated UV-B radiation at the end-Permian mass extinction (open access)

Phenolic compounds preserved in the tough outer coating of Alisporites tenuicorpus pollen grains provide a glimpse of scorching solar radiation during Earth’s largest mass extinction.

190 nations forge historic global biodiversity agreement to save species. Really! At what price?

Let's recognize there is a method behind this madness! A crisis is manufactured by the elites to gain power and control!

Beware of the Siren songs! Why are we not listening to Cassandra!

This is part of the globalism ideology! This is Big Government at an unprecedented scale to impose central planning on many aspects of our daily lives. It sure will reduce free markets and individual liberty! As if we had learnt nothing from the totalitarian ideologies/dictatorships of the 20th century!

These international agreements are a wonderful instrument for authoritarians to circumvent and violate e.g. the pesky U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence! Pacta sunt servanda (Roman law: contracts must be kept), right?

We are still on The Road to Serfdom! Totalitarian dictatorship has become more refined and subtle unlike those of the 20th century!

What is absolutely horrifying here that there is so little resistance! So many go along with this! What a tyranny of the minority over the majority!

The claim of loss of biodiversity (or more dramatic the Sixth Extinction)  crisis follows roughly a similar playbook as the greatest scam of our time, i.e. the Global Warming hoax and Climate Change religion.

Then we have rich countries dictating and bribing poorer countries what to do and so on! Some poorer countries use the opportunity to extort richer countries and so on!

"... countries around the world have cemented a deal to safeguard nature — and, for the first time, the agreement sets quantitative targets for biodiversity. In this sense, they are similar to the one that nations set seven years ago to limit global warming to 1.5–2 ºC above pre-industrial levels. ...
In the early hours of 19 December, more than 190 countries eked out the deal, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework ... A key target that it sets is for nations to protect and restore 30% of the world’s land and seas globally by 2030, while also respecting the rights of Indigenous peoples, who depend on and steward much of Earth’s remaining biodiversity. Another target is for nations to achieve a 90% reduction in the extinction rate for all species by 2050. ..."

Nations forge historic deal to save species: what’s in it and what’s missing At the COP15 summit, many countries celebrate, but some say their voices were not heard.

Footnotes

1) The Wikipedia article on pacta sunt servanda sucks!

The Sixth Extinction nonsense

Appealing to and triggering the fears of humans is always good business! Imagined and exaggerated catastrophes always sell well!

To quote President Franklin D. Roosevelt: "... the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself ..."

Exploiting these fears through propaganda and demagoguery is a task eagerly taken up by ever bigger government! So called non profit organisations profit tremendously from stoking these fears every day! Some billionaires are in the game too! Not to mention the enemies of open societies like China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea ...

We have now the capacity to store the DNA of every living creature on earth so we can revive it at any time again when needed or desired.

We have already done a lot since the early 20th century to preserve and protect nature and wildlife around the world. The achievements have been gigantic in human history! 

Take, for example, drone technology! We can now extensively monitor nature 24 hours a day up close. Thus, allowing for immediate intervention if necessary.

World population now at about 8 billion has most likely peaked! And world population will most likely decline further as economic prosperity and living standards improve across the world. This still leaves about 63,750 square meters per human. Or in other words, there are still huge largely uninhabited land areas to be found on this planet, where biodiversity is basically not very much threatened.

Loss of biodiversity does not happen equally and uniformly across all species. E.g. large animals are much more in danger than other animals and so forth. Thus, global authoritarian one size fits all measures should be rejected!

Congratulations to Jonathan, the tortoise just celebrated his 190th birthday

Published in 2014

Published in 2014. I am not endorsing following book

Earth's earliest mass extinction uncovered in fossil record

Amazing stuff! How many mass extinctions actually happened?

Was this newly discovered episode really a mass extinction event or rather some dynamic process involving the earliest living organisms?

Are we currently living in times of an ongoing mass extinction? Hype? "Earth is currently in the midst of a mass extinction, losing thousands of species each year. "

"... in the new study, scientists at UC Riverside and Virginia Tech have found evidence of another mass extinction event that took place about 100 million years earlier than the currently accepted first. This places it during the Ediacaran period about 550 million years ago, which is when complex multicellular life really took off for the first time. ...
Fossil records from this time are murky for a number of reasons. For one, the creatures that lived then were largely soft-bodied and so didn’t fossilize too well. ...

So for the new study, the researchers assembled a database of almost all known Ediacaran animals from around the world, and across the tens of millions of years of the period. They examined when these creatures lived and disappeared, as well as their environments, body sizes and shapes, diets, habits and whether they could move around or not.

In doing so, the team found that around 80% of the animals alive during the middle Ediacaran had gone extinct by the late Ediacaran. ..."

"... Although unclear whether this represents a true “mass extinction,” the percentage of organisms lost is similar to these other events, including the current, ongoing one. ...
Though it’s not clear why oxygen levels declined so precipitously at the end of the era ..."

From the significance and abstract:

"Significance

Mass extinctions are well recognized as significant steps in the evolutionary trajectory of life on this planet. Here, we document the oldest known extinction of animals and test for potential causes. Our results indicate that, like younger diversity crises, this event was caused by major shifts in environmental conditions. Particularly, we find support for decreased global oxygen availability as the mechanism responsible for this extinction. ...

Abstract

The Ediacara Biota—the oldest communities of complex, macroscopic fossils—consists of three temporally distinct assemblages: the Avalon (ca. 575–560 Ma), White Sea (ca. 560–550 Ma), and Nama (ca. 550–539 Ma). Generic diversity varies among assemblages, with a notable decline at the transition from White Sea to Nama. Preservation and sampling biases, biotic replacement, and environmental perturbation have been proposed as potential mechanisms for this drop in diversity. Here, we compile a global database of the Ediacara Biota, specifically targeting taphonomic and paleoecological characters, to test these hypotheses. Major ecological shifts in feeding mode, life habit, and tiering level accompany an increase in generic richness between the Avalon and White Sea assemblages. We find that ∼80% of White Sea taxa are absent from the Nama interval, comparable to loss during Phanerozoic mass extinctions. The paleolatitudes, depositional environments, and preservational modes that characterize the White Sea assemblage are well represented in the Nama, indicating that this decline is not the result of sampling bias. Counter to expectations of the biotic replacement model, there are minimal ecological differences between these two assemblages. However, taxa that disappear exhibit a variety of morphological and behavioral characters consistent with an environmentally driven extinction event. The preferential survival of taxa with high surface area relative to volume may suggest that this was related to reduced global oceanic oxygen availability. Thus, our data support a link between Ediacaran biotic turnover and environmental change, similar to other major mass extinctions in the geologic record."

Earth's earliest mass extinction uncovered in fossil record

Earth might be experiencing 7th mass extinction, not 6th 550-million-year-old creatures’ message to the present

Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition (no public access)

Diorama depicting Ediacaran-era sea creatures. (Smithsonioan Institution)

Asteroid impacts Earth just two hours after it was discovered

Just a friendly reminder, a larger asteroid hitting earth is a real threat compared to the Global Warming Hoax and the Climate Change Religion!

"... Asteroids are potentially one of the most dangerous natural disasters the planet could experience, especially since there is currently no immediate way to stop them.
According to research ... an asteroid over 140 meters in diameter would release an amount of energy at least a thousand times greater than that released by the first atomic bomb if it impacted Earth. ..."

Asteroid impacts Earth just two hours after it was discovered - The Jerusalem Post The asteroid, 2022 EB5, was small and burnt up in the atmosphere. However, more asteroids are coming, one flying by closer to the Earth than the Moon.

How a single-celled organism almost wiped out life on Earth

Very recommendable! About cyanobacteria, the Great Oxidation Event, the Huronian Glaciation, Endosymbiosis, mass extinction

NASA spacecraft will slam into asteroid in first planetary-defence test

Good news! If this important experiment is successful, generations of humans can sleep better.

Yes, if an asteroid were to hit earth that would be a real climate crisis, not a manufactured one that our political leaders cared about in Glasgow at COP26.

" ... [after] DART [launched] successfully [November 23, 2021], in late September or early October of next year it will slam headlong into Dimorphos at 6.6 kilometres per second. The impact should shrink Dimorphos’s orbit so that it circles Didymos at least 73 seconds faster than before. (Dimorphos is named after the Greek for ‘having two forms’, to signal NASA's intent to change the asteroid’s orbit.) Astronomers using telescopes on Earth will watch Didymos for signs of that orbital change — which would be evident in the way its brightness changes over time, as Dimorphos passes in front of and behind it. ...
NASA has identified more than 27,000 asteroids with trajectories that bring them close to Earth. The worry is that some new asteroid could appear, headed directly towards the planet — and that it would be large enough to cause serious consequences when it hits, just as with the asteroid that helped to kill off the dinosaurs and other life on Earth 66 million years ago. ..."

NASA spacecraft will slam into asteroid in first planetary-defence test DART mission to try out a strategy for shielding Earth from killer asteroids.

Riesen-Asteroid nähert sich: So sehen Sie ihn von der Erde aus

An alle Klimawahnsinnigen in der Bananenrepublik Deutschland: Der Einschlag eines solchen oder eines grösseren Asteroiden löst eine Klimakatastrophe aus, nicht das Spurengas Kohlendioxid!

Riesen-Asteroid nähert sich: So sehen Sie ihn von der Erde aus - ingenieur.de Asteroid 2016 AJ193 ist 1,4 Kilometer groß und kommt der Erde im August extrem nah. Weil der Himmelskörper so riesig ist, können auch Laien ihn gut am Himmel beobachten.