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It is the earth’s most severe known extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates species becoming extinct. It is the only known mass extinction of insects. It is also known as the Great Dying. Which of the following extinction events is being described by the above passage?
  • a)
    Permian-Triassic extinction event
  • b)
    Triassic-Jurassic extinction event
  • c)
    Late Devonian extinction event
  • d)
    Cretaceous-Palaeocene event 
Correct answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer?
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It is the earth’s most severe known extinction event, with up to...
  • A mass extinction event is when species vanish much faster than they are replaced. This is usually defined as about 75% of the world's species being lost in a 'short' amount of geological time - less than 2.8 million years. 
  • Five great mass extinctions have changed the face of life on Earth. We know what caused some of them, but others remain a mystery. 
    • The Ordovician-Silurian mass extinction occurred 443 million years ago and wiped out approximately 85% of all species. Scientists think it was caused by temperatures plummeting and huge glaciers forming, which caused sea levels to drop dramatically. This was followed by a period of rapid warming. Many small marine creatures died out. 
    • The Devonian mass extinction event took place 383 million years ago and killed about three quarters of the world's species, most of which were marine invertebrates that lived at the bottom of the sea. This was a period of many environmental changes, including global warming and cooling, a rise and fall of sea levels and a reduction in oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We don't know exactly what triggered the extinction event. 
    • The Permian - Triassic mass extinction, which happened 250 million years ago, was the largest and most devastating event of the five. Also known as the Great Dying, it eradicated more than 96% of all marine species and about three of every four species on land died out. The world’s forests were wiped out and didn’t come back in force until about 10 million years later. Of the five mass extinctions, the Permian-Triassic is the only one that wiped out large numbers of insect species. Hence option (a) is the correct answer. 
    • The Triassic mass extinction event took place 200 million years ago, eliminating about 80% of Earth's species, including many types of dinosaurs. This was probably caused by colossal geological activity that increased carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures, as well as ocean acidification. 
    • The Cretaceous mass extinction event occurred 65 million years ago, killing 78% of all species, including the remaining non-avian dinosaurs. This was most likely caused by an asteroid hitting the Earth in what is now Mexico, potentially compounded by ongoing flood volcanism in what is now India
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It is the earth’s most severe known extinction event, with up to...
Yes, "it" refers to the Earth in the given context.
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It has long been known that the rate of oxidative metabolism (the process that uses oxygen to convert food into energy) in any animal has a profound effect on its living patterns. The high metabolic rate of small animals, for example, gives them sustained power and activity per unit of weight, but at the cost of requiring constant consumption of food and water. Very large animals, with their relatively low metabolic rates, can survive well on a sporadic food supply, but can generate little metabolic energy per gram of body weight. If only oxidative metabolic rate is considered, therefore, one might assume that smaller, more active, animals could prey on larger ones, at least if they attacked in groups. Perhaps they could if it were not for anaerobic glycolysis, the great equalizer. Anaerobic glycolysis is a process in which energy is produced, without oxygen, through the breakdown of muscle glycogen into lactic acid and adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy provider. The amount of energy that can be produced anaerobically is a function of the amount of glycogen present—in all vertebrates about 0.5 percent of their muscle’s weight. Thus, the anaerobic energy reserves of a vertebrate are proportional to the size of the animal. If, for example, some predators had attacked a 100-ton dinosaur, normally torpid, the dinosaur would have been able to generate almost instantaneously, via anaerobic glycolysis, the energy of 3,000 humans at maximum oxidative metabolic energy production. This explains how many large species have managed to compete with their more active neighbours: the compensation for a low oxidative metabolic rate is glycolysis.Q. The passage suggests that the total anaerobic energy reserves of a vertebrate are proportional to the vertebrate’s size because

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It is the earth’s most severe known extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates species becoming extinct. It is the only known mass extinction of insects. It is also known as the Great Dying. Which of the following extinction events is being described by the above passage?a)Permian-Triassic extinction eventb)Triassic-Jurassic extinction eventc)Late Devonian extinction eventd)Cretaceous-Palaeocene eventCorrect answer is option 'A'. Can you explain this answer?
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