U-M researcher considers mass extinction

And because no hump day would be complete without some depressing news… U-M researcher and ecologist Anita Narwani warns and worries about the recent die-off of species around the globe. You might ask: "But why is this important?" Well, more than the issue at hand (our planet's potential demise) is shows the kind of important, far-reaching work that is being done at U-M.

Excerpt:

"It is too soon to declare that Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extinction, Narwani says. She defines a mass extinction as the loss of 75 percent of species over 2 million years or less. We haven’t lost that many — at least not yet. But if current rates of species losses continue, such a mass extinction could occur in just 300 years.

“This is a very short time relative to the time frame for the previous mass events,” she points out. Such an event would leave a telltale absence of many species in the fossil record. From that point on, fossils of the vanished species would no longer appear in the pages of Earth’s rock-based diary."

Read the rest here.