On the face of the terrible, kind inside …
But, fortunately, no matter how they frighten us today with the reptilians and "heirs of Aldebaran", it happened not now, but … 250 million years ago - at the end of the Permian period. Then the planet experienced a significant warming and volcanic "shake-up", which led to the total extinction of 95% of the former inhabitants of the ocean. But the reptiles got ahead of themselves - and very quickly occupied a natural niche! This is evidenced by new research by scientists.
American scientists have found that reptiles quickly conquered the world's oceans after the global extinction of marine life on Earth.
A new study led by the American University of California has proven that marine life is rapidly recovering on the planet. Global climatic changes, most likely caused by massive volcanic eruptions, destroyed 95% of all marine species in the world's oceans about 250 million years ago at the end of the Permian period. Researchers have determined that terrestrial reptiles colonized the ocean in just 3,350,000 years in the early Triassic.
The group of researchers included international scientists from China, the USA and Italy, and samples of rocks for analysis were taken from the city of Chaohu in southern China. The oldest marine reptiles, according to the fossils, appeared 248.81 million years ago. Researchers still find it difficult to name a more exact date. These first marine reptiles, including dolphins like ichthyosaurs, continued to rule the Mesozoic seas during the dinosaur era. At the same time, there have been significant changes in ocean chemistry and carbon cycling. Vertical mixing of ocean water ceased during or shortly after the mass extinction, causing a general depletion of oxygen in the ocean. “We are linking biotic recovery and the beginning of a new marine ecosystem to the eventual breakdown of ocean stratification and a return to an acidic ocean,” said Montanes, one of the scientists.
The Earth's orbit shifts from circular to elliptical and vice versa, which leads to a change in carbon cycles. These orbital convolutions provide the means for accurately dating the first occurrences of Mesozoic marine reptiles.
Also, scientists were able to determine that the development of reptiles and dinosaurs (before the fatal fall of the Mexican meteorite) did not in the least interfere with the development of mammals and did not suppress those - they developed in parallel, also at a very rapid pace.