Each mass extinction ultimately enabled Homo sapiens to thrive on this planet. Let’s go through all five.
about 13 kilometers broad smashed into what is now Yucatán, Mexico, traveling at a speed of about 72,000 kilometers per hour . This caused the 180 km wide and 19 km deep Chicxulub crater to be formed. The impact, which would have scorched the whole area within a 1,450 km radius, signaled the beginning of the end of the dinosaurs' 180 million-year reign over Earth.
Additionally, the world entered a prolonged cold winter due to the sharp decline in global temperatures. According to scientists, most extinction at the time would have happened within a few months of the impact.Dmitry Bogdanov/Wikimedia CommonsNevertheless, many species that could fly, burrow, or dive to the bottom of the oceans survived. For example,are the only direct descendants of dinosaurs living today — over 10,000 species are considered to have descended from impact-surviving victims.
The event is also occasionally referred to as the 'K-T extinction.' The letter 'K' is derived from the word 'Kreide'- a German word meaning 'chalk' that references the chalky sediment of the Cretaceous period. 'T' is for the term 'tertiary,' traditionally used for the time spanning the Paleogene and Neogene periods.
Moreover, the populations of vertebrate species have severely declined since the 1970s by about 68 percent. At present more than 41,000 species are considered under threat of extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature .
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