MinuteEarth

How Many Mass Extinctions Have There Been?


Listen Later

Thanks to Audible for supporting this video. Get your free 30-day trial at https://www.audible.com/minuteearth Thanks also to our Patreon patrons: Today I Found Out, Maarten Bremer, Mark Roth, Jeff Straathof, Tony Fadell, Ahmed, Muhammad Shifaz, Vidhya Krishnaraj, Luka Leskovsek, Duhilio Patino, Alberto Bortoni, Valentin, Nicholas Buckendorf, and Antoine Coeur ___________________________________________ Want to learn more about the topic in this week’s video? Here are some keywords/phrases to get your googling started: – Mass Extinction Event: a significant, global decrease in the diversity of life – "Big 5": The five biggest mass extinction events since the Cambrian explosion of Life 550 million years ago – Biodiversity Crisis: Like a mass extinction, a biodiversity crisis is a marked depletion in diversity in the fossil record. Some scientists prefer to call the late-Devonian extinction a "biodiversity crisis" because a lack of speciation contributed to the loss in diversity just as much as extinction did. – Diversity curve: A line chart that shows the diversity of life (usually by genera, but sometimes by species or family) over time – Lagerstatte: a deposit of sedimentary rock that contains a profound number of fossils, often with excellent preservation – Shareholder Quorum Subsampling: A statistical method that corrects for some of the biases in the fossil record, allowing scientists to generate more accurate diversity curves ___________________________________________ Credits: Script Writer: Emily Elert (twitter:@eelert) Script Editor: Kate Yoshida (twitter:@KateYoshida) Video Illustrator: Ever Salazar (twitter:@eversalazar) Video Director: Emily Elert (twitter:@eelert) With Contributions From: Henry Reich (twitter:@minutephysics), Alex Reich (twitter:@alexhreich), Peter Reich Music by: Nathaniel Schroeder: http://www.soundcloud.com/drschroeder _________________________________________ Like our videos? Subscribe to MinuteEarth on YouTube: http://goo.gl/EpIDGd And for exclusive early access to all our videos, sign up with Vessel: https://goo.gl/hgD1iJ Already subscribed? Help us keep making MinuteEarth by supporting us on Patreon: https://goo.gl/ZVgLQZ Also, say hello on: Facebook: http://goo.gl/FpAvo6 Twitter: http://goo.gl/Y1aWVC And find us on itunes: https://goo.gl/sfwS6n ________________________ References: Alroy, J. (2015). Personal Communication. Alroy, J. (2008). Dynamics of origination and extinction in the marine fossil record. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 11536-11542. Retrieved April 8, 2015, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic... Alroy, J. (n.d.). Accurate and precise estimates of origination and extinction rates. Paleobiology, 40(3), 374-397. Retrieved September 20, 2015, from https://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~alroy/pdf... Benton, M. (2003). When life nearly died: The greatest mass extinction of all time. New York: Thames & Hudson. Barrett, Paul M. (2015). Personal Communication. Fossilworks: Gateway to the Paleobiology Database. http://fossilworks.org/?page=paleodb Lloyd, GT, Smith, AB and Young, JR, (2011). Quantifying the deep-sea rock and fossil record bias using coccolithophores. Geological Society Special Publication, 358 (1), 167-177. Mcghee, G., Clapham, M., Sheehan, P., Bottjer, D., & Droser, M. (2013). A new ecological-severity ranking of major Phanerozoic biodiversity crises. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 370, 260-270. Raup, D. (1979). Biases in the fossil record of species and genera. Bulletin of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History 13: 85–91. Raup, D., & Sepkoski, J. (1982). Mass Extinctions in the Marine Fossil Record. Science, 215(4539), 1501-1503. Vermeij, GJ. (2015). Personal Communication.
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

MinuteEarthBy Minute Earth

  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5

4.5

233 ratings


More shows like MinuteEarth

View all
Radiolab by WNYC Studios

Radiolab

43,998 Listeners

Freakonomics Radio by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Freakonomics Radio

32,287 Listeners

Planet Money by NPR

Planet Money

30,844 Listeners

Hidden Brain by Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam

Hidden Brain

43,721 Listeners

Science Quickly by Scientific American

Science Quickly

1,388 Listeners

Big Picture Science by Big Picture Science

Big Picture Science

941 Listeners

MinutePhysics by Neptune Studios

MinutePhysics

470 Listeners

Science Magazine Podcast by Science Magazine

Science Magazine Podcast

826 Listeners

Science Friday by Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Science Friday

6,443 Listeners

Curiosity Weekly by Discovery

Curiosity Weekly

927 Listeners

Proof by America's Test Kitchen

Proof

1,881 Listeners

Short Wave by NPR

Short Wave

6,569 Listeners

The Atlas Obscura Podcast by SiriusXM and Atlas Obscura

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

1,744 Listeners

The Joy of Why by Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine

The Joy of Why

488 Listeners

The Economics of Everyday Things by Freakonomics Network & Zachary Crockett

The Economics of Everyday Things

1,680 Listeners

History Dispatches by Matt and McKinley Breen

History Dispatches

106 Listeners