Mass Extinction Threat: Earth on Verge of Huge Reset Button? | LiveScience
Before ancient megafauna went extinct, mastodons kept broad-leaved vegetation, such as black ash trees, in check.
CREDIT: Barry Roal Carlsen, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the diversity of species found in oceans all over the world, according to a comprehensive study of fossil records. The findings suggest humans will live in a very different future if they drive animals to extinction, because the loss of each species can alter entire ecosystems
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Some scientists have speculated that effects of humans — from hunting to climate change — are fueling another great mass extinction. A few go so far as to say we are entering a new geologic epoch, leaving the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch behind and entering the Anthropocene Epoch, marked by major changes to global temperatures and ocean chemistry, increased sediment erosion, and changes in biology that range from altered flowering times to shifts in migration patterns of [...]
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