Thursday 30 June 2022 05:30 PM Wildfires may have sparked Earth's largest mass extinction event, new research ... trends now

Thursday 30 June 2022 05:30 PM Wildfires may have sparked Earth's largest mass extinction event, new research ... trends now
Thursday 30 June 2022 05:30 PM Wildfires may have sparked Earth's largest mass extinction event, new research ... trends now

Thursday 30 June 2022 05:30 PM Wildfires may have sparked Earth's largest mass extinction event, new research ... trends now

Wildfires may have sparked Earth's largest mass extinction event, new research reveals The Permian mass extinction, which took place about 248 million years ago, may have been caused in part by widespread wildfires   'The potential for wildfires as a direct extinction driver during hyperthermal events, rather than a symptom of climatic changes deserves further examination,' researchers say Scientists examined fossil and plant charcoal records of the Sydney and Bowen basins in eastern Australia and Antarctica in order to gain new insights

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Researchers believe the Permian mass extinction event 248 million years ago that killed off almost every species on Earth may have been sparked in part by widespread wildfires.

Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanos, higher temperatures and dry landscapes led to wildfires in areas that were previously wetlands. 

Since the wetlands were no longer capturing carbon from the atmosphere, that in turn led to more warming. 

Scientists studied fossil plant record to gain a better understanding of what drove the  Permian extinction event. Pictured above is the Sheep Fire burning through a forest on a hillside in Wrightwood, California

Scientists studied fossil plant record to gain a better understanding of what drove the  Permian extinction event. Pictured above is the Sheep Fire burning through a forest on a hillside in Wrightwood, California

'Sifting through the fossil plant records of eastern Australia and Antarctica, we found high abundances of burnt, or charcoalified, plants throughout the late Permian Period,' says Chris Mays, lecturer in paleontology at University College Cork (UCC) and lead author of the study.

'From this high baseline, charcoal abundances reached a prominent peak right at the top of the last Permian coal beds, indicating a major but short-lived increase in wildfires. This was followed by low charcoal for the next three million years of the Early Triassic Period,' Mays further explains in a statement

A warming climate and increased fire activity during the extinction event seems to have pushed all the plants to the breaking point. Pictured above is a forest fire raging in the Kyrenia mountains in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

A warming climate and increased fire activity during the extinction event seems to have pushed all the plants to the breaking point. Pictured above is a forest fire raging in the Kyrenia mountains in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Researchers noted that regions of carbon capture are necessary to fight climate change, otherwise the world could 'stay intolerably warm for hundreds of millennia.' Pictured above is a firefighter working to put out a fire in Laguna Niguel, California

Researchers noted that regions of carbon capture are necessary to fight climate change, otherwise the world could 'stay intolerably warm for hundreds of millennia.' Pictured above is a firefighter working to put out a fire in Laguna Niguel, California

 Fossil and plant charcoal records of the Sydney and Bowen basins in eastern Australia and Antarctica provided researchers with the information that the wetlands were being

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