Geologically speaking nothing on our planet could ever be described as permanent. Though because of our species measurement of time passage, anything which remains unchanged over several human generations is normally considered long lasting and thus permanently stable.
Truth of the matter is that our planet has revealed through scientific analysis the fact of several mass extinctions having occured throughout our planets existence.
439 million years ago our earth experienced the Ordovician-Silurian extinction, which they say was caused by dropping and then raising sea levels due to the creation and then melting of glaciers thus causing a mass loss of sea life and vegetation.
364 million years ago we have the late Devonian extinction, this one which also caused a mass extinction of sea life with the difference that today’s science has yet to discover a cause.
251 million years ago our earth had experienced the Permian-Triassic extinction which was caused by either comet or asteroid impact, volcanism from the Siberian Traps and or related loss of oxygen in the seas. Whatever the cause it was responsible for the killing of 95 percent of all species, 53 percent of marine families, 84 percent of marine genera and an estimated 70 percent of land species such as plants, insects and vertebrate animals.
Ouch!
But we’re not done yet.
199 million to 214 million years ago gave us the Triassic extinction, most likely caused by massive floods of lava erupting from the central Atlantic magma province, an event that triggered the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. The volcanism may have led to deadly global warming. Rocks from the eruptions have been found in the eastern United States, eastern Brazil, North Africa and Spain.
And now our most recent event, having occured some 65 million years ago, the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction which involved the dinosaurs, is believed to have been caused by the impact of a several-mile-wide asteroid hitting the Yucatan Peninsula and Gulf of Mexico.
But as scary as that sounds it must be remembered that had it not been for this particular cataclysm based extinction, which is alleged to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, that our species known as mammals, never would have received the opportunity to flourish in eventually evolving into us!
Call it a cosmic crapshoot, but that folks is how they say we came to be.
Since then we “humans” have come close to near extinction through things like plagues, mass human genocide against each other, plus who could forget our two major world conflicts along with other numerous wars in settling differences on various social ideologies.
And our species is apparently not through yet even though our earth or the universe could in the next second eradicate us from the face of this world.
Worst case scenario is a planet earth devoid of all human existence.
Now imagine if you will, experiencing such a world through the arrival of extraterrestrial explorers, where you should keep in mind that someday, this may come true.
Report From A Dead Planet