mass extinction

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mass extinction

n.
The extinction of a large number of species within a relatively short period of time, as between the Cretaceous and Tertiary Periods when three-quarters of all species on earth, including most dinosaurs, became extinct.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
Their multiproxy measurements established a clear connection between the steady creep of deoxygenated waters and the step-wise nature of the extinction event -- its start in communities of deep-water organisms and eventual spread to shallow-water organisms.
The foreshadowing of another great extinction event should shatter the idea of the Cartesian man - one that separates itself from nature - rather, people like Trump are reaffirming it.
Continued accumulation of carbon dioxide in the world's oceans could trigger a chemical reaction in the planet's carbon cycle that could potentially lead to a mass extinction event.
1 for the extinction event that wiped out the world's non-avian dinosaurs, from T-Rex to the three-horned Triceratops.
WWF's own Living Planet" report in October said that 60 percent of all animals with a backbone and fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals and had been wiped out by human activity since 1970.Another study confirmed that a recent decline in bugs that fly, crawl, burrow and skitter across still water and fuelled by deforestation, urbanisation and the rise of commercial farming and was part of an unfolding mass extinction event, only the sixth in the last half-billion years.Last year, Earth Hour was observed in more than 7,000 towns and cities in 187 countries, according to the organisers.
However, the data does show that the extinction event is impacting both generalist and specialist insect species.
"We are witnessing the largest extinction event on Earth since the late Permian and Cretaceous periods," the authors noted.
THE global decline of insects is the "largest extinction event on Earth", a review has warned.
More than two-thirds of life on Earth died off some 252 million years ago, in the largest mass extinction event in Earth's history.
The extinction event at the end of the Permian period 252 million years ago wiped out 96% of all marine species and 70% of land-dwelling vertebrates.
The songs are inspired by the thought of a terrible, global extinction event and its aftermath...