The Ongoing Holocene Extinction
Over 50 species are going extinct every single day.
Scientists have concrete evidence that the Earth is currently undergoing the largest mass extinction in 65 million years.
It’s called the Holocene Extinction — Holocene being the current epoch that began at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago.
From Earth’s fossil record, we know about Six Great Mass Extinctions:
- The Ordovician-Silurian Extinction occurred about 444 million years ago.
At the time, all complex organisms lived in the sea. The most common theory is that the onset of an ice age caused the extinction, which wiped out over 100 families of marine life. Many trilobite families bit the dust during this event.
- The Late Devonian Extinction happened 364 million years ago.
This event saw a major worldwide extinction of coral reefs and the marine life they supported, as well as other groups of animals and plants. Nobody’s sure what caused it, but scientists speculate global cooling and several medium-sized asteroid impacts within a few million years of each other may have been the culprits.
- The Permo-Triassic Extinction occurred 251 million years ago.
The granddaddy of all mass extinctions, this event saw 96% of all marine species and 70% of land vertebrate species kick the evolutionary bucket.
The die off happened in less than a million years (a very short time in geological terms) and the recovery took 5 million years to crank back up, and another million years after that to get rolling. While not deemed the smoking gun yet, this event coincides with the largest known volcanic eruption in history.
- The Triassic-Jurassic Extinction occurred 200 million years ago.
Was it caused by climate change, asteroids, or volcanoes? The verdict isn’t clear. What is clear is that 20% of marine life and many large amphibians were wiped out. At least half of all species on the planet bit the dust.
This event occurred over less than a 10,000 year period, just before the supercontinent of Pangea began to break up.
- The Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction occurred about 65 million years ago.
This event was probably caused, or at the least aggravated by, the impact of an asteroid around the size of Manhattan. About 16% of marine families and 18% of land vertebrate families ceased to exist. In North America, over 50% of plant species may have been wiped out.
And of course…this is the event that doomed the dinosaurs.
- The Holocene Extinction is occurring now.
Studies of the fossil record show that the normal “background” rate of extinction is about one species every four years. The current rate is between 30,000 and 100,000 per year.
You are now witnessing the fastest of the six great mass extinctions.
And this extinction, without a doubt, is the result of human population growth. By the end of this century, over five million species (half of the species on Earth now) will likely be gone.
“It’s not just species on islands or in rain forests or just birds or big charismatic mammals,” says Stuart Pimm, a conservation biologist researcher from the University of Tennessee. He notes fish, birds, insects, plants, and mammals. “It’s everything and it’s everywhere…it is a worldwide epidemic of extinctions.”
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Damn, Joe. Way to depress me on a Friday morning!
Anytime! No problem ;-)
You come up with all these facts about the extinction of all kind of critters from millions of years ago, but not a word of the possibility of the demise of that furry, four legged denizen that thinks he is Paul Bunyan and destroying all the trees around my pond. I need current and usefull facts for now, to see if he may be on that list.
I’m assuming you’re talking about a beaver, which in my opinion is just a big slow rat.
My own granddad had a family of these rodents set up shop in the levee of his cow pond. After they’d made swiss cheese out of the levee, the cow pond would never stay filled up again, which really ruined my fishing.
While Beavers don’t appear to be on the short list of endangered species, take comfort in the fact that the Giant Beaver, an 8-foot-long 500-pound rat, went extinct at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago.
You are positive that the 8 footer is extinct? If not, I think I will skip fishing for a while.
Hey Pete,
You’re in luck, your beaver is on my list. In fact, rodent’s is all I hunt.
Send me your address and I’ll take care of him.
Mitt
Mitt
Are you anywhere near Oakland, Illinois it is in central Illinois
Nope. Oakland, California.
I’m a Napa Valley prune pickin’ kid. Prunes all gone now though.
Was there back in 65. Stationed on Treasure Island with the Armed Forces Police.