Extinction Events in Earth History Proceedings of the Project 216: Global Biological Events in Earth History

This volume is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of dynamic biological changes through the Phanerozoic which are associated with mass extinction events and similar biotic crises, and their causal mechanisms. In particular, it documents in detail the complex nature of terrestrial and extraterrestrial feedback loops that are associated with many mass extinction intervals. Authors have been asked to represent most of the known mass extinction events through time, and to comment on the complex earthbound or extraterrestrial causes (or both) for global biotic crises. The reader is offered new perspectives of extinction boundaries, a more innovative and diverse approach to causal mechanisms and mass extinction theory, blended views of paleobiologists, oceanographers, geochemists, volcanologists, and sedimentologists by an international cast of authors. No other book on extinction presents such a broad spectrum of data and theories on the subject of mass extinction.

How to define “global bio-events”.- Phanerozoic extinctions: How similar are they to each other?.- Biological selectivity of extinction.- A multi-causal model of mass extinctions: Increase in trace metals in the oceans.- Important considerations in the investigation of global bioevents.- Shock pressures in igneous processes: Implications for K/T events.- Vertical advection from oxic or anoxic water from the main pycnocline as a cause of rapid extinction or rapid radiations.- An astronomical explanation of anomalous concentrations of iridium element during catastrophic extinctions.- Evolutionary crisis within the Ordovician acrotretid inarticulate brachiopods of Poland.- Late Ordovician graptolite mass mortality and subsequent early silurian re-radiation.- Silurian and pre-Upper Devonian bio-events.- The Kacak-otomari event and its characterization in the Palentine domain (Cantabrian Zone, NW Spain).- The Middle Givetian pumilio-Events a tool for high time resolution and event-stratigraphical correlation.- The late Frasnian (Upper Devonian) Kellwasser Crisis.- The Frasnian-Famennian mass extinction record in the eastern United States.- Frasnian/famennian event in the Holy Cross Mts, Central Poland: Stratigraphic and ecologic aspects.- Late Devonian — Early Carboniferous paleobiogeography of benthic Foraminifera and climatic oscillations.- Major evolutionary events among the spiriferids at the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary.- The Permian-Triassic boundary revisited.- Mass extinctions in the fossil record of late Palaeozoic and Mesozoic tetrapods.- The relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic events in the evolution of Mesozoic non-marine Ostracoda.- The taxonomic analysis of mass extinction intervals: An approach to problems of resolution as shown by Cretaceousammonite genera (global) and species (Western Interior of the United States).- Patterns of survival and recovery following the Cenomanian-Turonian (Late Cretaceous) mass extinction in the Western Interior Basin, United States.- Trophic differences, originations and extinctions during the Cenomanian and Maastrichtian stages of the Cretaceous.- Originations, radiations and extinctions of Cretaceous rudistid bivalve species in the Caribbean Province.- Periodic bioevents in the evolution of the planktonic foraminifera.- Biogeochemical modeling at mass extinction boundaries: Atmospheric carbon dioxide and ocean alkalinity at the K/T boundary.- The fern-spore abundance anomaly at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary: A regional bioevent in western North America.- Palynological evidence of effects of the terminal Cretaceous event on terrestrial floras in western North America.- The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary interval at south table mountain, near Golden, Colorado.- The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary crisis at Zumaya (Northern Spain). Micropaleon-tological data.- Aftermath of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction: Rate and nature of the early paleocene molluscan rebound.- Species duration and extinction patterns in Cenozoic non-marine Ostracoda, Western United States.- Mammal extinctions in the Vallesian (Upper Miocene).