New Recipe: How to Make a Mass Extinction

Apocalypses may not be all fire and brimstone. A growing number of paleontologists say that Earth-smashing meteors cannot take all the blame for the many mass extinctions that dot our planet's fossil record. The true causes seem to be more complex.

"The [meteor] impact model has been so successful because it's easy to explain and easy to understand," said Nan Arens of Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, NY. "However, the simple answer isn't always the best one."

At the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America this week in Philadelphia, Arens and others argued that the combined punch of volcanoes, climate change and impacts leaves many species teetering on the brink of extinction. One final blow brings collapse.

The same scenario could be happening now.

"Impacts by themselves simply don't cause major mass extinctions," she told LiveScience.

The P-T extinction event, or Great Dying, occurred 251 million years ago when up to 90 percent of all species were snuffed out. David Bottjer's group from the University of Southern California has studied the fossil record and found clear signs that species were in peril long before they disappeared.

The reason: "The Earth got sick," Bottjer said.

The illness began when Siberian volcanoes triggered global warming, he explained. This reduced ocean circulation and the oxygen supply. These hazardous conditions were a boon for sulfur-eating microbes, which released toxic hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere, finishing off most of the life that remained.

Common diagnosis

A sick Earth succumbing to a final shock is apparently a common extinction formula. Arens and her colleagues analyzed geologic data from the last 488 million years and found more species died out when the environment was first stressed and then stung.

Specifically, the researchers compared stress-inducing volcanic activity and catastrophic meteor impacts. Only when the Earth experienced both did extinction rates significantly increase.

"Periods of stress are going to reduce population sizes," Arens said. With reduced numbers, "species are vulnerable to pulse catastrophes."

On the flip side, an unstressed environment is resilient to geologic and climatic disasters because life is diverse and geographically spread out.

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