Even the worst mass extinction had its oases
- Thread starter JournalBot
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It seems plausible that isolated microclimatological pockets might have functioned as biological arks during the catastrophe, retaining some of biological diversity over the extended period of instability. Perhaps similar to the case of Wollemia Nobilis which was found alive in isolated gorges in Australia 2 million years after the last fossil record.
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It's going to gradually be less hospitable to us, but life is going to find a way to survive for a while.
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If we can manage to go extinct in a non-nuclear fashion, it'd be the best thing for the planet.
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Yeah there are likely going to be forms of bacteria and smaller things that stick around awhile.
I am starting to think that the data is indicating to us a high likelihood of a sterilization event though, in the wake of our extinction.
Feedback loops ultimately will decide, and we won't be around to observe it either way.
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Humans are possibly on track to wipe out many of the large mammals from the Earth. Including humanity itself. Along with many more vulnerable birds, reptiles, insects, and plants.
Single cell organisms? Not even a large dent. Probably a large portion of the more robust plants and creatures will survive us.
Single cell organisms? Not even a large dent. Probably a large portion of the more robust plants and creatures will survive us.
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There will be a fair number of humans in the coming centuries, even if we manage total thermonuclear war. There just won't be much of the civilized part of living we've become accustomed to. This is a huge planet with wildly diverse and deep ecosystems.
It is still much nicer more or less the way it is now so this isn't a reason for nihilism. We could make this planet pretty much a paradise although we seem hell bent to turn it into as much of a hellscape as possible.
Sigh.
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Speakertoanimals
Ars Tribunus Militum
I want to defend the reflexive fashionable nihilism. Did you know that we are all gonna die? Every one of us.
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Neat article, about a subject I likely wouldn't have found otherwise. Thanks, ARS!
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Thanks for mentioning this tree.
I went to Wikipedia after reading your comment. Wollemia Nobilis has been called a “living fossil” and was only discovered in 1994 by a hiker. It’s the only tree in the newly defined genus, Wollemia, that’s tens of millions of years old.
Wollemia Nobilis
Wollemia sounds like a very hardy tree. New Wollemia have now been planted around the world and are thriving in temperatures from 10 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Some of the wild trees are over 500 years old. One is 131 feet tall.
It’s interesting that Aboriginal Australians don’t appear to know about the tree which suggests it’s been rare for at least several generations.
This resilience leads me to wonder why and when it became so rare (60 individuals) and endangered before it was even discovered a few years ago. I’m interested in others’ thoughts on this.
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Life is tenacious. Unless this planet was scoured clean down to pure rock without an atmosphere, some form of life will rebound. It appears the extinction level events purged out the old growth and made way for new growth to flourish, much like a forest fire decimates its environment but paves way for new life to blossom - in time.
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There is life in the rocks several kilometers underground. So absent a planet killer impact that melts the entire surface to very very deep life will continue. But the activities of humans on the surface currently is almost certainly going to cause a huge reduction in species numbers and also of population numbers in the current well established biome.
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Yes, extinctions (and climate / other factors) open up ecologic niches where competition is lower (or at least changed) allowing other organisms to move in and potentially allowing changes afforded by genetic events to better survive in the new environment. Been happening ever since it started.
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Semi-related, and not an "oasis" it came back from, but I still was amazed when I learned that the Great Pyramids of Giza (constructed 2600 BCE) are older than the last of the woolly mammoths (finally went extinct ~2000 BCE after thousands of years in remote Artic islands). Life is incredibly tenacious.
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As long as there are rats and locusts, and kudzu, there will be humans who can eat them.
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drskeletaldrawing
Smack-Fu Master, in training
This is a nice summary of an intriguing paper, but why does the image feature Dimetrodon, which went extinct 20 million years before the End Permian extinction?
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I've wondered the same about the Death Stranding, the 5 Extinction Events. Was the universe actually trying to kill life, or did it only accelerate its development by creating pressure for stronger, or smarter newer forms
Err, and about real life too I guess
Err, and about real life too I guess
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Pity you couldn't fit in enough subheadings to get the whole quote. Life will not be contained / Crashing through barriers / Painfully, even dangerously / life finds a way
but the order and two more subheaders is a tall ask haha.
but the order and two more subheaders is a tall ask haha.
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SubWoofer2
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Thanks for linking to the article. It's maps show the Permian location, where two continental masses and two seas meet, halfway between equator and pole. The illustrations of before-and-after wildlife scenes are excellent too.
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The Earth belongs to the bacteria. Always has and always will.
For this, nowadays, I am truly thankful.
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My feeling is that humanity is committing suicide as a species. Global warming = gun loading, along with other similar trends. And the trigger is being squeezed right now, particularly in the middle of the North American continent.
Some people are nice, it's too bad. But in the end we are a parasitical infestation on the planet, and when we're gone, the planet and its other inhabitants will be much better off.
At least we are ectoparasites. No scolax necessary. I take a little comfort in that.
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Yeah, I was going to make a similar comment. If you are going to use a word that survives in
scientific use, go ahead and use the proper plural.
On the other hand, I'd never read 'refugium' in that specific, scientific context, so thanks to
(I suspect) the original article's authors for the use of the surviving relic in context.
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I'm sorry, that is a horrible opening illustration. LEGO and early 2020's AI are outside, fighting to determine which gets to complain first (though LEGO may want to take credit instead of complain).
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Good article. I wonder if refugia locations are as much due to prevailing wind patterns as to hot/humid locations. I recall maps (from ashfall data) on one big Yellowstone eruption. It was clear that if you were downwind at the time, you were going to have a bad day/week/month...
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John McPhee wrote in one of his geology essays that the flood basalts laid down during the Permian event would have covered the entire earth with 10 feet of lava had it been evenly distributed. The flood basalts of the North West U.S., large as they were, don't even begin to compare in quantity.
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This brought to mind a great Nova episode from almost 2 decades ago (yikes!) about a different time period and location in China, whence many/most of our modern ornamental flowering plant species originate, being sheltered through ice ages and whatnot.
There doesn't seem to be an official streaming link (First Flower S35.E5), but you can find the transcript and other ancillary materials on the Nova page with links to purchase. (Though, you can find non-official versions to stream with little effort...)
There doesn't seem to be an official streaming link (First Flower S35.E5), but you can find the transcript and other ancillary materials on the Nova page with links to purchase. (Though, you can find non-official versions to stream with little effort...)
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Life, uh, doesn't find a way - that is what extinction means. 99.9 % of all lineages have gone extinct during Earth's history.
The evolutionary process is fecund and diversifying, so life as such is unlikely to be wiped out at any given moment, but that is another property.
We have been losing deep diversity in the mass extinctions, ever since the Cambrian for animals and during the Great Oxygenation Event - the largest mass extinction, with an estimated 99 % of lineages gone - for unicellular lifeforms.
Mass extinctions are not beneficial, kind of like diseases.
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