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Is this the cause of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum? Even though it is too old to be tied to the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis it is still around the a
by tastyfreeze 5y ago
Is this the cause of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum? Even though it is too old to be tied to the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis it is still around the age attributed to a transition in geological epochs. The end of the Paleocene was marked by a mass extinction of 30-50% of species. During the following Eocene epoch, with presumably many empty niches, there were many new species that evolved.
The more we look, the more evidence we are finding that periodic mass extinctions are caused by cosmic impacts.
- lumost 5y agoThis begs the ancillary question - would faster cosmic impacts speed up or slow down evolution? There are surely habitable planets with impacts orders of magnitude more and less impacts.
- tastyfreeze 5y agoI assume by faster you mean more frequent. When it comes to impacts faster just means more destructive. However, an increase in frequency of large impacts could cut off evolutionary pathways. For example, frequent impacts could make the land uninhabitable to most species.