What Other Times Has an Impact Like This Occurred
Other than the K-T event, there have been six other mass extinction events in the history of the Earth. The five before the K-T event are the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction event, Ordovician-Silurian extinction event, the Late Devonian extinction event, the Permian-Triassic extinction event, and the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. Each of these events marks the end of one geological period and the start of another, as is the case for the K-T event. The P-T extinction event, also known as the Great Dying, was the largest of all the extinction events, resulting in the extinction of 96% of marine life and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates. It is also the only event during which insects went extinct. One of the only groups to survive this extinction was the dinosaurs, which later became extinct during the K-T event. The Holocene, or Quaternary extinction event that began with the Ice Age and is currently ongoing. Although only 784 species extinctions have been documented, it is estimated that in actuality between 20,000 and two million species became extinct during this period, but it is currently impossible to know precisely how many. The rate of continued extinction is hypothesized to be up to 140,000 species a year. This extinction event differs from the previous ones because of the role of humans have played due to hunting, industrialzation and the related pollution as well as deforestation. Another impact that would have indefinitely changed the Earth is the Mars-sized object that created our moon and core conditions.
