What historical event fascinates you the most?
Call me the Queen of Morbidity, but I am fascinated by extinction events and enjoy reading and watching shows about them. If you don’t know what an extinction event is, it’s when the Earth (or an asteroid) is like “Nope, F society” and nukes the majority of life on the entire planet.
Life eventually bounces back, but it’s forever changed from the lifeforms it had before.
Earth has had about 5 significant extinction events so far, the most popular being what drove the dinosaurs to extinction. However, what I find cool about them is, each extinction event was different, although two of them involved volcanoes, Earth’s silent, ticking time bombs, just waiting to make the floor lava.
Here’s a brief overview of each event:
End Ordovician (about 444 million years ago)
This one was mostly about the oceans. The planet got super cold, with huge ice sheets forming and melting, causing sea levels to rise and fall a lot. Marine life didn’t like the wild ride, and many species vanished.
Late Devonian (around 360 million years ago)
Plants spreading all over the land cooled the planet down big time. The oceans changed, too, which was bad news for sea creatures. Lots of species couldn’t keep up and went extinct.
End Permian — The Great Dying (about 250 million years ago)
This was the toughest one ever—almost everything died. Massive volcanic eruptions spewed gases that heated things up, made oceans acidic, and generally made Earth a harsh place to live. About 96% of species poofed out.
End Triassic (about 200 million years ago)
More volcanoes! This time, volcanoes flooded parts of Earth with lava and gases, warming the planet and messing with the oceans. Many species disappeared, but it also gave dinosaurs a chance to take over later.
End Cretaceous (65 million years ago)
You’ve probably heard of this one — it’s when the dinosaurs (except birds) went extinct. A giant asteroid hit Earth, causing chaos everywhere—fires, dust clouds blocking sunlight, and a big climate shake-up. Lots of species, big and small, disappeared.These mass extinctions were mostly about massive changes in climate, volcanoes, sea levels, and sometimes a giant space rock hitting Earth. They changed the course of life, wiping out many species but also making room for new ones to evolve.
You might be curious if humans lived through these, and the answer is no. While there were humanoids in the last event, in End Cretaceous, they literally were not like us as we evolved from primates that came millions of years after.
However, scientists believe that we are currently going through a manmade extinction event called “Anthropocene extinction” or “Holocene extinction. This current event is caused by the negligent behavior of humans such as habitat destruction, pollution, climate change and overhunting, triggering a decline of biodiversity globally.
See how extinction events are cool? You realize Earth isn’t such a docile place after all.
