ISLAMABAD-Researchers find that timing of mass extinctions lines up with asteroid impacts and massive volcanic eruptions. Mass extinctions of land-dwelling animals — including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds — follow a cycle of about 27 million years, coinciding with previously reported mass extinctions of ocean life, according to a new analysis published in the journal Historical Biology. The study also finds that these mass extinctions align with major asteroid impacts and devastating volcanic outpourings of lava called flood-basalt eruptions — providing potential causes for why the extinctions occurred.
Sixty-six million years ago, 70 percent of all species on land and in the seas, including the dinosaurs, suddenly went extinct, in the disastrous aftermath of the collision of a large asteroid or comet with the Earth.
Subsequently, paleontologists discovered that such mass extinctions of marine life, in which up to 90 percent of species disappeared, were not random events, but seemed to come in a 26-million-year cycle.
Follow the PNI Facebook page for the latest news and updates.
