It’s only relatively recently that we’ve actually understood the idea of extinction at all. Dara O’Briain’s Science Club: Evolution, BBC 2012
No-one imagined the Earth was very old. ibid.
Periods of mass extinction were identified. ibid.
Major extinctions: five. ibid.
The ancestor of the birds was a small dinosaur. ibid.
In evolutionary perspective of our place in the history of the earth reminds us that Homo sapiens has occupied the planet for the tiniest fraction of that planet's four and a half thousand million years of existence. In many ways we are a biological accident, the product of countless propitious circumstances. As we peer back through the fossil record, through layer upon layer of long-extinct species, many of which thrived far longer than the human species is ever likely to do, we are reminded of our mortality as a species. There is no law that declares the human animal to be different, as seen in this broad biological perspective, from any other animal. There is no law that declares the human species to be immortal. Richard E Leakey
Few problems are less recognized, but more important than, the accelerating disappearance of the earth’s biological resources. In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it is perched. Paul Ehrlich
If you dig down into the Earth, down to what is called the K-T boundary, you find this very thin layer of soil which represents the boundary between the dinosaur era and the post-dinosaur era, between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary era ... When you analyse these soil samples you get high levels of iridium. Micho Kaku, author Physics of the Impossible
We’re in ‘Jurassic Park’ territory. If we go to the zoo in the future, we'll have zoos for extinct animals. Michio Kaku
The impact theory says a rock fell out of the sky and killed everything except for the things it didn’t kill. I don’t think that’s much of an explanation. Dr Norman MacLeod, Natural History Museum London
This is the K-T boundary. And because it’s such a thin sharp line we know something dramatic must have happened here. Some catastrophe. And until recently we had no clue whatsoever here. And it remained a total mystery. So as soon as you find 10,000 times more iridium at the very moment when the dinosaurs disappeared, you know somewhere on Earth a very big impact must have happened by an asteroid or a comet ... You know something hot happened, and hot is associated with an impact. Professor Jan Smith
It was a catastrophe of cosmic proportions. An asteroid the size of a city smashes into Earth. The dinosaurs and 75% of all life on Earth are doomed. It happens in just twenty-four hours, and is one of the most important days in the history of Earth. Ancient Asteroid Apocalypse, 2010
Scientists call it the Cretaceous-Tertiary or K-T event – the apocalypse of the dinosaurs. ibid.
A black line in the layers of sediment. A geological marker scientists call the K-T boundary ... One of the K-T boundary’s most distinctive features is the presence of unusually high concentrations of the element iridium. Iridium is signature of an asteroid impact. ibid.
Montana 65,500,000 B.C. It is the end of the Cretaceous period and the continents are taking on their modern forms. Walking with Dinosaurs: Death of a Dynasty, BBC 1999
Massive eruptions that have lasted for centuries have laid waste to landscapes and filled the atmosphere with poisonous gases and debris. ibid.
Life on Earth is choking to death. ibid.
Tyrannosaurus – a five-ton thirteen-metre carnivore specifically evolved to kill other giant dinosaurs. ibid.
Among these new plants the birds are flourishing. ibid.
Showers of shooting stars herald the approach of a giant comet on a collision course with Earth. ibid.
Now they are facing a combination of events that will spell their doom. ibid.
5% of life died out. ibid.
Two hundred and fifty million years ago, before the time of the dinosaurs … an early relative of mammals … the Great Dying – the Permian Extinction. The most catastrophic extinction event in the history of the planet. Reign of the Dinosaurs I: Evolution’s Winners, Discovery 2012
Impacts of very large objects mostly comets have probably produced most of the great mass extinctions over the past half a billion years. Professor Eugene Shoemaker
The woolly mammoth: these majestic titans ruled Europe and Asia long before our own ancestors fell under their spell. Professor Alice Roberts, Woolly Mammoths: Secrets from the Ice, BBC 2012
Prehistoric carcasses are emerging. ibid.
Why did these magnificent animals suddenly go extinct? ibid.
A tiny population survived on a remote island till about four thousand years ago. ibid.
In 1774 a Spanish exploration vessel arrived on the uncharted Pacific coast of North America. Next morning dozens of war canoes approached the ship. Jago Cooper, Masters of the Pacific Coast II: Survival, BBC 2016
Within a hundred years of contact with Europeans, they had suffered a near-extinction level catastrophe. Their lands were occupied; the population decimated. An entire culture faced extinction. ibid.
Entire civilisations like the Aztec and the Inca were destroyed … The people here were among the last indigenous American cultures they [Spanish & British 1770s] encountered. ibid.
British Columbia: these islands are to this day the homeland of the Haida people; one of the most powerful of the west-coast nations. ibid.
We live on a volatile planet in a violent universe. When planets collide, black holes eject deadly gamma rays, and asteroids strike without warning. These destroyers have struck time and again. How the Universe Works s3e6: Extinction: Weapons of Mass Extinction, Discovery 2014
The blue planet turned white. It became a snowball Earth … A few species survived. ibid.
If a gamma ray burst had obliterated life in the past it could happen again in the future. ibid.
Rogue planets, ice ages, gamma ray bursts, volcanic eruptions and asteroid strikes. ibid.
The team uncovered a dense layer of fossils right at this boundary line. The Day the Dinosaurs Died, BBC 2017
Out of all the creatures in the ocean at least seven out of ten species go extinct. Peter Ward, University of Washington
We are entranced by the beauty of our planet … All of this is so fleeting. For the last four and a half billion years our Earth has been a constantly changing ball of rock, transforming itself over and over again. It’s more fragile than we like to acknowledge. Chris Packham, Earth I, BBC 2023
Five pivotal moments in Earth’s history. Moments of drama, of crisis, and of rebirth. Events that shaped the planet we live on. ibid.
Not only to arise but to flourish and endure. But in fact it’s death that is the only true inevitability. ibid.
Extinction helped create our rich living world. But our planet walks a tightrope. If extinction goes unchecked, the complex web of life crumbles. ibid.
The greatest mass extinction event in Earth’s history. Something caused out planet’s life support systems to fail, wiping out most of the species on Earth. ibid.
253 million years ago … This is Pangea, a super-continent rich with life. Coastal waters team with weird and wonderful creatures. ibid.
The crust fails. The landscape physically torn apart as lava flood on to the surface forming great curtains of fire. This is just beginning of the most deadly volcanic event in Earth’s history … A series of explosions that went on for two million years. ibid.
That magma begins to heat up the coal and salt to a temperature of 800 degrees Celsius. A poisonous cocktail of gasses begins to build until the land above can take no more. ibid.
For life to bounce back the planet needed to cool down. ibid.