Scientists close to unraveling the mysteries of the Devonian extinction

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Ученые приблизились к разгадке тайны девонского вымирания371 million years ago the Earth was the largest ecological disaster.

A new study by scientists from the University of Lausanne allowed us to accurately determine the time of mass extinction of flora and fauna on Earth in the Devonian period. Geological Devonian period (420 — 358 million years ago) is the beginning of the late Paleozoic. It was at this time a number of events that influenced the further development of life on Earth, according to the University of Lausanne on your website.

According to scientists, 371 million years ago the Earth was the largest ecological disaster. So just look into the past, scientists have managed through the research of the mineral zircon. This mineral has been found in volcanic ash in a mountainous sedimentary rocks. Using the uranium-lead method of study, the degree of disintegration contained in the zircon and uranium accumulation in this process, the lead scientists determined the time of the Devonian extinction.

First, massively extinct a species widely spread on Earth, it is about 22 percent of all families of marine animals, most of which were invertebrates. Instead, there are new groups of plants and animals.

Second, the life of the sea, walks on land. Appear land vertebrates and terrestrial vegetation — first trees.

If the extinction of the dinosaurs, which occurred about 66 million years ago, associated in particular with the fall of a giant meteorite that caused the emergence of the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan Peninsula, the causes of the Devonian extinction is not exactly clear. That is why his solution is so disturbing scientists. After all, “a precise Dating of the Devonian extinction gives a new basis for a better understanding of what happened then events that could lead to environmental catastrophe.”

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