Our Upcoming Speaker
Note: Since October 2022, we have returned to in-person meetings at the Birmingham Zoo using a hybrid Zoom-In Person format with the in-person meeting at the Lodge at the Birmingham Zoo

Title: "RETHINKING MASS EXTINCTIONS"

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Speaker: Spencer Lucas, PhD, Curator of Geology and Paleontology, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

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Abstract:

Paleontologists identify five mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic, the so-called “Big Five:” end Ordovician, end Devonian, end Permian, end Triassic, and end Cretaceous. But, I present a radically different view of this subject based on an evaluation of the evidence and arguments regarding mass extinctions. I conclude that the evidence is weak for mass extinctions other than two--one at the end of the Permian and the other at the end of the Cretaceous (and the latter can be questioned).  Indeed, much of what has been written about mass extinctions is questionable and hyperbole.  There were no “Big Five” Extinctions, just the “Big Two.” And, these were marine extinctions; there were no co-eval mass extinctions on land. The most likely cause of mass extinction = volcanism. Mass extinctions of the past have little to teach us about current extinctions or the extinction of humans.

About the Speaker: 

Spencer G. Lucas is a stratigrapher and paleontologist who has been Curator of Geology and Paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA) since 1988. He received a B. A. degree from the University of New Mexico (1976) and M. S. (1979) and Ph.D. (1984) degrees from Yale University. Lucas’s research has focused on biostratigraphic problems of the late Paleozoic, Mesozoic and early Cenozoic. Since 1992, he has been a major contributor to refinement of the Triassic timescale as a Voting Member of the IUGS Subcommission on Triassic Stratigraphy. He is also currently a voting member of the Permian Subcommission and the Carboniferous Subcommission. He has undertaken extensive field research in the American West, Kazakstan, China, Mexico, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Lucas has published 7 books and edited or co-edited more than 70 volumes. He has published more than 1000 scientific articles. In the mid-1990s, Lucas began to study tetrapod footprints and other vertebrate trace fossils, particularly of late Paleozoic and Triassic age.

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.​​Credit: Albuquerque the Magazine