2023-08-19 23:00:00
Science, an international academic journal, published this week’s cover of various animal bone fossils. From top left, clockwise, are the bones of a ground sloth, western camel, western horse, dire wolf, and saber-toothed tiger. They are all animals that lived around the end of the Cenozoic Era. Many mammals became extinct in the Pleistocene, from regarding 2.58 million years ago to 12,000 years ago. The Great Ice Age, in which glacial and interglacial periods were repeated, followed by active volcanic activity. Fossils of these animals that lived in the Pleistocene provide important clues to the geologic era in which large-scale changes in ecosystems took place. The Robin O’Keeffe joint research team at Marshall University in the US analyzed 172 animal fossil bones and announced the results of a study on how animals became extinct in the Pleistocene on the 18th in Science. The research team used radiocarbon dating, which measures the concentration of remaining radioactive carbon, to determine when and how the animal, the owner of these bone fossils, died. At that time, climate change and vegetation records of each continent were reflected to evaluate how ecological dynamics occurred. Most of the owners of bone fossils appeared to have gone extinct before the start of the ‘Younger Dryas’, a cold period that suddenly came regarding 12,000 years ago. All taxa except camels and sloths died out almost simultaneously. The research team pointed to human-triggered fires as the main cause of the mass extinction. In the midst of rapid global warming and massive drought, human fires have caused intense forest fires. Regan Dunn, a professor at the University of Southern California, USA, who participated in the study, said, “If you look at the distribution of plants at the time animals went extinct, they either adapt to fire or grow well in areas prone to fire.” Explained. It was also estimated that global warming would have accelerated more than before as humans lit fires. The research team said, “Humans can have a huge impact on the ecosystem even with a very small population increase.”
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