Antonio Montanez
EES 112
Planet Earth through Time
Dr. Workman
The Permian Triassic Mass Extinction
The Permian Triassic extinction was an event of cataclysmic disaster and almost the extinction of all species on planet earth. The Permian Triassic extinction is said to have occurred millions of years ago, geologist have estimated that its occurrences happened about 248 million to 286 million years ago. This rare occurrence of events proceeded the Triassic geologic periods and the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. This mass disaster was the largest dissipation of living life on planet earth; it is believed to be even superior to other crises such as the Ordovician and
Devonian events and the conclusion of the cretaceous era that came upon the dinosaurs.
The eradication of species numbers average at a toll close to one hundred percent of earths total living creatures. “It is the Earth's most severe known extinction event, with up to
96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct” (Sahney, and Benton 759). Not only where marine and terrestrial species effected but this catastrophic event is the only recognized mass annihilation of insect, “some 57% of all families and 83% of all genera became extinct” (Benton 336). These numbers total to an average of 96% of all species on earth that became extinct from the unknown of the Permian Triassic extinction. The entire world as we know it was almost vanished of all living organism.
Since the prodigious extinction of 96% of all species occurred from the Permian Triassic mass extinction, the minimal percentage of only 4% of species was left on earth. Only 4% of species was left to proceed on earth, which means that all life on earth is to be supposedly descended from that mere 4% of survivors. All though mass number of the following species had died off some species still survived, those descendants which are categorized in the 4% of survivors include ostracods, brachiopods, ammonoids, bryozoans, fishes, sharks, eurypterids, crinoids and many echinoderms. The event is very complex and a proven cause for why or what actually happened to found the tragic events has not been endorsed as factual. The difficultly of proving the cause of what initiated this event is modestly because it happened millions of years ago, a quarter of a billion years ago actually. It is theorized by geologist that at least two separate phases took place, which were spread million years apart but also acting in sequence of each other. As there is no proven cause for the origin of the disaster lead by the Permian Triassic extinction many causes and theories have been proposed by scholars of the field. The main theories that have been professed include natural disasters such as volcanic basalt eruptions causing massive floods, hailing asteroid impacts, disastrous methane gas reactions from the sea
diversity of oceanic species. Millions of wonderous species existed at this time in the ocean and most of them will never appear again in earth's history. In the geologic time scale, a million…
