SUSTAINING LIFE (series title)
An ongoing look at food, water, and climate change
MASS EXTINCTION: Life on the Brink
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Jonathan Payne, PhD, associate professor of geological sciences, Stanford University; and Sarah Holt, Producer, Director and Writer of Mass Extinction for Howard Hughes Medical Institute/Tangled Bank Studios, and NOVA/PBS
It’s a mystery on a global scale: five times in Earth’s past, life has been nearly extinguished, the vast majority of plants and animals annihilated in a geologic instant. The “K/T Extinction” wiped out the dinosaurs; “The Great Dying” obliterated nearly 90% of all Earth’s species. What triggered these dramatic events? And what might they tell us about the fate of our world? Travel through time and around the world as the film Mass Extinction: Life at the Brink explores some of our most compelling questions around what happened, when such devastation could happen again, and how we as species may cause – or prevent – a sixth extinction.
This program is free thanks to the generosity of the Lowell Institute. Additional funding provided by the Richard S. Morse Fund.
