A global drop in oxygen levels about 550 million years ago led to Earth's first known mass extinction, new evidence suggests.
The height of the Ediacaran period, about 550 million years ago, was a boom time for life in Earth's oceans. Petalonamids shaped like feathers sucked nutrients from the water, slug-like Kimberella grazed on microbial mats, and the ancestors of jellyfish were just beginning to make waves. Now, a new study suggests that these missing fossils point to the earliest known mass extinction event on Earth.
One possible explanation could be that early trilobites — armored and often helmet-headed marine arthropods — began competing with Ediacaran fauna, causing the latter to die out. Another possible explanation is that Ediacaran fauna lived on, but the conditions necessary for preserving Ediacaran fossils existed only until 550 million years ago."People recognized that there was a change in biota at this time," Evans said.
Why oxygen levels plummeted in the waning years of the Ediacaran remains a mystery. Volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate movements and asteroid impacts are all possibilities, Evans said, as are less-dramatic explanations, such as changes in nutrient levels in the ocean.
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