Clues to the End-Permian Extinction

Paleoecologist Conrad Labandeira travels to the Karoo Basin of South Africa to find leaf fossils from the Permian-Triassic boundary, the time of the Earth's largest mass extinction. What can bug bites on the leaves tell us about the food web during a global upheaval? What can they tell us about our own uncertain times?

[dangelobenjamin]

Hi Smithsonian! I visit your museums multiple times a year, and have been since I was a kid. Thank you! Cool video. The EPME hypothesis is such a trip to think about. Really cool to see the field work and the detectives excited about data.

[InMyField]

Sedimentary rock is awesome. It has everything, like first photographs of ancient days.

[deeliciousplum]

Wow! Thank you so much for sharing this vid. First, it is quite something to witness these two researchers finding such fossils by the side of a road. And yet, this pretty much reminds us of the demonstrable, exceptionally lengthy history of life.

[mypenisisunbelievablysmall]

Your YouTube URL has the word 'yes' in it :')

[TheBigcatdaddy]

Lizards have been around since the Permian?

[MemphisMoss-gcgz]

real smithsonian education fans are you here?😘😍⭐🌟⭐🌠

[Tapajara]

The K-T represents the end of the Dinosaurs. The P-T represents the ends of such things as Deinocephalians. Since Dinosaurs are more famoust than Deinocephalians then...well...you get the picture. Also, the asteroid event at the end of the Cretaceous is very well documented and famous.

[ElectricPyroclast]

Ah, then there's a chain reaction. Reptiles wouldn't have easily risen to power during the Triassic if not for the P-T that wiped out a bunch of things. If the P-T never happened, who knows how long it would've taken for reptiles to rise to power?

Still, yes, dinosaurs, dubbed "terrible lizard" in Latin, frightens and fascinates children and adults more than Dimetrodons.

[ElectricPyroclast]

I still don't know why the K-T version is more famous.

[JohnSmall]

Please please please get rid of that irritating background music.

[michaeld]

Challenge to multi-cellular life possibly but not life. It would not surprise me at all if some of our bacteria will still be eking out a living underground even when the sun has expanded to consume Venus. Our surprise that life may exist on Mars at some level is really a parochial remnant of a time before we knew the scale of the universe and its uniform chemistry. Life obviously exists in abundance outside of Earth. A lot of our current trendy eco save the planet thinking is more about concern for the drowning of our foolishly sited cities and the survival of humanity than any real concern for nature. It will bounce back again after our temporary mischief, either carbon/toxic metal release or nuclear, the end of Permian event is more an indicator of that if anything.

[craigkirkland]

Dont tell this stuff too a Born Again Christain they will hate you for it...

[nibiruresearch]

Geologists only seem to know about asteroid impacts. They do happen of course, now and then. But much more important and much more frequent are the regularly occurring natural disasters that are caused by the ninth planet in our solar system. This disaster causes a huge tidal wave and a bombardment of fiery meteors. These flood and meteors kill many living species and some are wiped out. So there have been many mass extinctions. Because they are caused by a heavenly body, they are as predictable as the sunrise or a solar eclipse. They create a cycle of civilizations. One of these five civilizations reaches a higher level of knowledge and skills than we have today.
To learn much more about the cycle of recurring floods, the recreation of civilizations and its timeline and ancient high technology, read the eBook: "Planet 9 = Nibiru". You can read it nicely on any computer, tablet or smartphone. Search for: invisible nibiru 9