Current Event #1 10/10/11
Science News Current Event
Title: Terrestrial Biodiversity Recovered Faster After Permo-Triassic Extinction Than Previously Believed
Date: Oct 10th, 2011
Summary (8-10 sentences)
We all (or some of us) know about the extinction of dinosaurs.Mainly the mass extinction that happened between the Permian and Triassic period. Recently, two researchers found data that could very well contradict most theories about what caused that extinction.
Previously, the terrestrial biodiversity was believed to take 15-30 million years to recover, but a scientist found terrestrialbiodiversity that recovered in just five million years. During a smart-people meeting, theories were exchanged. Some people thought that insteadof being spread out over the terrestrial realm severely, reprecussions may have taken less time than just the marine realm.
Since the study suggested that the reprecussions didn’t take as long as the marine realm, it makes sense to say that extinction–which took place about 251 million years ago–was caused by events that effected ALL life, globally.
What you found most interesting about the article and why (4-6 sentences)
When you think about dinosaurs and their extinction, it’s easy to think of it as something simple and rounded, events happening somewhat smoothly, right? Well, what I found fascinating was that modern research today can prove some of that wrong. Though this in specific doesn’t quite have the magnitude to “change textbooks”, it opened the door to be able to do that in the future. This proves that not only does the biodiversity recovery rate was falsely collected, but other things could possibly be wrong to. We could be wrong about so much more than just that.