Batavia Lyceum Association
- Presenter Dr. Mark O. Kaletka "The Great Dying: The Permian extinction and the end of life as we know it."
- Monday, February 6. Doors at 6pm, presentation at 7pm
- https://www.facebook.com/batavialyceum
The BLA is honored to welcome our next guest, Mark Kaletka.
Dr. Mark O. Kaletka earned a degree in nuclear physics from Northwestern University and is retired from Fermilab, where he worked in computing and IT. Mark's current interests are geology and photography.
“The Great Dying: The Permian extinction and the end of life as we know it.”
250 million years ago, nearly all life on earth disappeared in the worst of the five known major extinction events. The end of the Permian period saw 70% of land species and over 90% of ocean species go extinct from the fossil record in as little as 20,000 years. Yet, it took millions of years for the planet to restore itself and recover the diversity of life it had before the extinction event. While exact processes are still being debated, it is well accepted that a sudden rise in carbon dioxide levels was the immediate cause. Scientists now find that carbon dioxide levels today are rising at a higher rate than estimated during the Great Dying. Are we about to kill off all life on Earth, again, in a sixth major extinction? And, will homo sapiens survive?
