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Late Devonian Mass Extinction

• Extinction Files, BBC. short explanation of mass extinctions, their cause and effect, and a discussion of the Late Devonian extinction.
• Hannover Park, hooper virtual Museum. Short summary of Late Ordovician mass extinction, includes facts, geologic setting, species affected, and likely cause as continental glaciation.
• University of Southern California, Department of Earth Sciences. Short outline of the Late Devonian extinction, with pictures and graphs of the marine invertebrates that were affected and paleogeographic maps showing where glaciers were. This page will start in the Ordovician. You have to scroll down to the Devonian.
• Devonian Times. Short summary of the Late Devonian extinction, with emphasis on the "Devonian Plant Hypothesis." This theory infers that the evolution and expansion of terrestrial vegetation led to changes in geochemical cycles that caused the mass extinction.
• Deep Time-Devonian Period. PBS.org. Summary of life (with links) in the Devonian with a short summary of the extinction at the end of the Devonian.

To understand Ice Ages like the one that occurred at the end of the Ordovician Period, see also key links for the Pleistocene ice ages

 

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