Can changing sea level lead to extinctions?
Artist's rendition of an asteroid slamming into tropical, shallow seas of the Yucatan Peninsula. The aftermath of this immense asteroid collision, which occurred approximately 65 million years ago, is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species on Earth. (Credit: Donald E. Davis/NASA)
The disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago might be partly explained by evidence of a giant meteorite that collided with Earth.
Shanan Peters: A lot of other extinctions, the causes of which have been hard to pin down. We don’t have as good a smoking gun associated with them.
That’s geologist Shanan Peters. He believes changes in sea level can also contribute to mass extinctions.
Shanan Peters: One of the cool things I think about sea level – that is, how much of the continents is flooded – is that it’s both a symptom and a driver of a whole bunch of really interesting environmental changes.
For example, shallow seas once covered areas that are dry today. When a prehistoric sea drained, drastic environmental changes would have killed off masses of sea creatures. Land animals might have been affected, too.
Shanan Peters: So this huge seaway existed for millions of years during the time of the dinosaurs. That drained at about the same time that this impact happened and the dinosaurs went extinct. And the fact that that ocean drained would have had a pretty profound impact on climate in the continent of North America.
The draining of this ancient North American sea – together with a meteor collision – might have pushed the dinosaurs to extinction.
