ERS103H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Paleoecology, Lazarus Taxon, Global Cooling
Document Summary
If it happened before, it can happen again, so we"re hoping to build some predictive models that will help us deal with the next extinction when it comes. Think it was caused by an episode of rapid glaciation. Got really cold, then got really warm. Extinctions can be caused by rapid global cooling and warming. 3 trillion tons of carbon were released into the ocean thanks to diverging plate tectonics and basalt volcanoes, acidify the ocean. We can see the creator using a geographical anomaly map. The big 5 mass extinction events likely had different causal mechanism. Although establishing cause and effect can be difficult due to the different symptoms" associated event, mes can be variously selective. When you acidify oceans, it becomes very hard to build a carbonate shell, so species that don"t need to build thick calcium shells have fossils that survived mass extinction events. The big 5 mass extinctions alter the structure and function of ecosystems.
