THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

An UNNATURAL HISTORY

ELIZABETH KOLBERT
Diego Mauricio Sánchez
elizabeth kolbert
★ She was born in 1961 in The Bronx, New York.
★ She is an American journalist and author.
★ She is a scientific and science journalist
★ In 2015 she won the Pulitzer Prize for general
nonfiction with “The Sixth Extinction”.
★ She started working for The New York Times as a
stringer in Germany in 1983.
★ Since 1999, she has been a staff-writer for The New
Yorker.
 THE SIXTH EXTINCTION
The Sixth Extinction describes some of Kolbert’s
travels around the world to learn about wildlife
preservation and the vanishing natural world.
 FIVE EXTINCTIONS
★ Cambrian Explosion:

Early life-forms began to flourish.

(540 million years ago)

★ Ordovician-silurian Extinction:

(440 million years ago)

Caused by an Ice age

 Ordovician-Silurian extinction
first extinction - 444 million years ago
 FIVE EXTINCTIONS
★ Devonian Extinction:

Many tropical marine species went extinct.

(365 million years ago)

★ Permian-triassic Extinction:

The largest mass extinction event in Earth's history

affected a range of species, including many vertebrates.

(250 million years ago)

Second extinction

Late Devonian extinction - 364 million years

ago
 Permian-Triassic extinction -
Third extinction 251 million years ago

The biggest mortality

 FIVE EXTINCTIONS
★ Triassic-jurassic Extinction:

The extinction of other vertebrate species

on land allowed dinosaurs to flourish.

(210 million years ago)

Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction:

● A meteorite impact causes a natural

disaster that extinguish the dinosaurs
(65.5 million years ago)
fifth extinction
George cuvier charles lyell
cuvier vs. lyell
★ Contrast ideas between Cuvier
and Lyell
★ Extinctions were due to brief
★ Extinctions were due to a gradual
changes in the earth. (Cuvier
change (Lyell theory)
theory)
★ The theory of evolution of the
★ He believed there was no
species by Charles Darwin was
evidence for evolution, but rather
based on Lyell ideas.
evidence for cyclical creations
and destructions of life forms by
global extinction events such as
deluges.
The humans and the sixth extinction
the acid oceans
Species extinct by human hand
the gene of madness
The human being is the mass destruction agent.

★ Destroy local species

★ Cut down trees
★ Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG)
The rat like an adapted organism or invasor