以地球上古生物的灭绝周期论宇宙年对地球生命影响的假说

几十亿年来地球上的生物是否存在周期性的繁盛与衰亡,可以说是全人类都非常关注的问题。寻找发现生物大灭绝的规律可以说是人类的梦想。从已发现的化石来看,地球上确实发生过若干次生物大灭绝,而且距我们今天都十分遥远。我们仅仅从现在地球的某些变化似乎很难发现古代生物大灭绝的规律。所以,如果我们从一个宇宙年的角度来看待地球上的生物大灭绝现象,可能会使我们对问题的认识更接近于正确答案。     

英专家警告地球可能正经历新一轮生物大灭绝

<正>联合国环境规划署5月10日在伦敦发布《全球生物多样性展望》报告第三版。参与发布会的英国专家说,报告显示全球生物多样性快速减少的势头并未放缓,地球可能正在经历第六次生物大灭绝事件,而人类活动是主要原因之一。     

“酸海”引发史前最大规模生物灭绝 分析表明火山释放的二氧化碳使海水迅速酸化

在一连串组合拳般的打击下,地球于2.52亿年前发生了最大的灭绝事件。最新研究表明,随着巨大火山爆发喷涌出大量二氧化碳,进而使海洋变得更为酸性,几乎全部的海洋生物都从这颗行星上消失了。这也是地球史上5次生物大灭绝中规模最大的一次。这项研究是旨在查明发生在二叠纪末期的     

生物灭绝缘于气候变化

一项新的研究报告认为，2600万年前的生物大灭绝原因是气候变化，而不是小行星撞地球所致。     

泥盆纪弗拉阶-法门阶事件的化学-生物地层学研究

对广西南洞剖面的研究表明,弗拉阶-法门阶(F-F)生物事件(也称为Kellwasser生物事件)是阶梯式灭绝事件,生物种类锐减发生于linguiformis带最晚期,持续时间约为0.1Ma。在F-F界线有3个Ni-Ir异常层, 该异常层同时也富含亲铜元素,并伴有碳同位素负异常以及微玻陨石。紧随着覆盖有海啸岩。F-F事件实际上是生物-地球化学-沉积综合事件。像这样的综合事件,在中、晚泥盆世共发生了5次。发生的频率为4.6×10^-6a^-1。讨论了F-F大灭绝事件的可能原因。     

生物灭绝与海洋污染有关

中、澳、美等国科学家研究生物分子化石发现:2.5亿年前生物大灭绝与古海洋透光层的硫化氢污染有关。地球生命演化史上曾发生六次重大的生物绝灭事件,其中2.5亿年前的     

海洋“活化石”是这样炼成的

<正>腕足动物舌形贝是一种身裹双壳的海洋无脊椎动物,由于其形似豆芽菜,也被称作“海豆芽”。从寒武纪早期开始出现,舌形贝历经了地球动物出现以来所有的磨难和自然灾害,并经受住了地球最严重的“五次生物大灭绝”事件,延续至今。达尔文在其1859年出版的巨著《物种起源》中,认为这类生物的形态自志留纪以来变化非常小,首次描述并定义腕足动物舌形贝为“活化石”。     

半月国际科技要闻

物种大灭绝加速爬行动物进化英国布里斯托尔大学Michael J. Benton和日本东京大学Tai Kubo在分析了约2.5亿年前一次生物大灭绝事件前后的460件爬行动物足迹化石后发现,大灭绝事件之前所有爬行动物的腿脚     

“避风港”使众多生物躲过地球史上最大灭绝灾难

正在南京举行的第四届世界寒武纪地质大会上,中国地质学家、贵州省区域地质调查研究院的魏家庸说,距今约2.5亿年的二叠纪末期的一次生物灭绝事件中,有很多生物在“避风港”中躲过了这场灾难。魏家庸说:“二叠纪晚期地球上存活的大量生物,如藻类和棘皮类生物,在二叠纪末期的一次生物灭绝事件发生后的200万—400万年的时间内又出现了。”魏家庸认为,这说明在这次生物灭绝事件中,地球的某些角落成了一些生物免遭厄运的“避风港”,这些存活的生物为三叠纪生物在短期内的复苏和繁荣起到了推动作用。科学界普遍认为,地球生命演化史上曾发生过六次重大的生命灭绝事件,其中发生在距今约2.5亿年二叠纪末的那一次规模最大,影响最深远,其结果导致当时地球上绝大多数的生物灭绝,只剩下少量低级的生物。此后在三叠纪,这些生物通过至少400万年的时间才逐渐进化为高级生物,并使整个寂寞的世界逐渐丰富多彩。魏家庸说,目前大量古生物化石的发现可以证明,当时的地球存在使一些生命免遭灭绝的“避风港”,但是“避风港”在地球的什么位置,有多少,仍然需要进一步研究。“避风港”使众多生物躲过地球史上最大灭绝灾难@秦亚洲 @石永红     

第六次物种大灭绝猜想

美国的两位研究人员发现，在过去的5．5亿年里，平均每隔6200万年地球上就会经历一次物种大灭绝，每次灭绝都造成超过一半的物种消失，经历灭绝危机后的地球需要经过1000万年才能恢复元气。虽然人们对于物种大灭绝提出了解释，包括火山喷发、彗星撞击地球以及海平面的变化等等，但是对于这种周期性的灭绝现象，科学家们没有能够提出合理的解释。     

论全球巨变的银河旋臂成因

通过对银河系旋涡结构和地史资料的研究表明,距今大约6亿年以来,地球上曾先后四次重复发生的各类全球巨变事件——大冰期、生物大量灭绝和地磁倒转等,同日地系统相继穿越银河系四条主旋臂的运动有较好的相关性:当地球跟随太阳绕银心运行到旋臂内部时,生物灭绝百分率、地磁转向速率和全球平均温度等均普遍增高;而当它们穿出旋臂后,生物灭绝百分率和地磁转向速率则明显降低,地球也随之进入大冰期。本文认为,旋臂内较为密集的众多的小行星、彗星、星际气体和尘埃等天体对地球的直接撞击或间接影响是产生上述全球巨变的重要原因。在此基础上,进一步分析了各类巨变的区别和联系,解释了巨变的全球性、准周期性、相位关系和产生方式等特性,并讨论了同类巨变在不同阶段的若干特点。     

阿利效应及其对生物入侵和自然保护中小种群管理的启示

目前人类活动导致的生境破碎化,对生物多样性有着极大威胁. 生境破碎化后出现许多小种群,小种群很容易受到阿利效应的影响而加速灭绝;外来物种在其入侵过程中也存在着阿利效应,阿利效应对生物入侵的影响已引起国际生态学界的关注. 介绍了阿利效应的定义、作用方式及影响因素. 通过对相关案例的分析,得出外来物种在入侵初期会因为繁殖困难、密度低或周围环境等原因存在阿利效应;阿利效应影响物种的入侵速度、入侵策略和在入侵地区的生存. 由于阿利效应的影响,濒危物种可能因为种群大小处于临界点以下而趋于灭绝. 针对这些情况总结了阿利效应对入侵物种防治和濒危物种保护中小种群管理的启示.     

Environmental determinants of extinction selectivity in the fossil record

The causes of mass extinctions and the nature of biological selectivity during extinction events remain central questions in palaeobiology. Although many different environmental perturbations have been invoked as extinction mechanisms, it has long been recognized that fluctuations in sea level coincide with many episodes of biotic turnover. Recent work supports the hypothesis that changes in the areas of epicontinental seas have influenced the macroevolution of marine animals, but the extent to which differential environmental turnover has contributed to extinction selectivity remains unknown. Here I use a new compilation of the temporal durations of sedimentary rock packages to show that carbonate and terrigenous clastic marine shelf environments have different spatio-temporal dynamics and that these dynamics predict patterns of genus-level extinction, extinction selectivity and diversity among Sepkoski's Palaeozoic and modern evolutionary faunae. These results do not preclude a role for biological interactions or unusual physical events as drivers of macroevolution, but they do suggest that the turnover of marine shelf habitats and correlated environmental changes have been consistent determinants of extinction, extinction selectivity and the shifting composition of the marine biota during the Phanerozoic eon.     

赣东北木偶戏调查报告

赣东北地区处于浙赣、闽赣、皖赣交界处,这里交通发达,无论是陆路还是水路,都是南北方向和东西方向的交通枢纽,便利的交通为当地的经济发展提供了良好的客观条件,明代江西四大名镇,其中的河口镇和景德镇就属赣东北地区。受多种文化的交流冲击,这里形成了独特的文化现象,孕育出了明代戏曲四大声腔之一的弋阳腔。受此影响,这里的木偶戏非常活跃,民间木偶班社也很多。但由于历史的原因,赣东北木偶戏正濒临消亡,为了能保护好这一濒临消亡的艺术形式,课题组对此进行了大量的民间走访,对其源流、班社、艺人、音乐、剧目、表演程式等方面进行了调查研究。     

Extraterrestrial amino acids in Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary sediments at Stevns Klint, Denmark

Since the discovery nearly a decade ago that Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary layers are greatly enriched in iridium, a rare element in the Earth's crust, there has been intense controversy on the relationship between this Ir anomaly and the massive extinction of organisms ranging from dinosaurs to marine plankton that characterizes the K/T boundary. Convincing evidence suggests that both the Ir spike and the extinction event were caused by the collision of a large bolide (greater than 10 km in diameter) with the Earth. Alternative explanations claim that extensive, violent volcanism can account for the Ir, and that other independent causes were responsible for the mass extinctions. We surmise that the collision of a massive extraterrestrial object with the Earth may have produced a unique organic chemical signature because certain meteorites, and probably comets, contain organic compounds which are either rare or non-existent on the Earth. In contrast, no organic compounds would be expected to be associated with volcanic processes. Here we find that K/T boundary sediments at Stevns Klint, Denmark, contain both alpha-amino-isobutyric acid [AIB,(CH3)2CNH2COOH] and racemic isovaline [ISOVAL, CH3CH2(CH3)CNH2COOH], two amino acids that are exceedingly rare on the Earth but which are major amino acids in carbonaceous chondrites. An extraterrestrial source is the most reasonable explanation for the presence of these amino acids.     

我国上更新统—全新统千年尺度气候地层划分与研究进展

基于对最近20年来国际上更新统—全新统千年尺度气候地层划分认识的基础上,粗略解析了2012年编制的过去270ka以来区域年代地层对比表,并评述了我国上更新统—全新统千年尺度气候地层划分与研究进展．对于气候变化不稳定性的原因,列举了一些学者对其的驱动机制的看法,并倾向的认为千年尺度变化是在地球外部太阳活动强迫因子影响下与地球气候系统内部耦合发生的气候的震荡．     

Mineral magnetism of quaternary red earth in Eastern China and Its paleoenvironmental significance

Mineral magnetic measurements have been made on Quaternary Red Earth profiles from Zhejiang Province, Eastern China. Three distinctive magnetic stratigraphic horizons have been identified on the basis of magnetic susceptibility, anhysteretic remanent magnetization, saturation isothermal remanent magnetization and magnetization parameters measurements. Magnetic measurements revealed that there were great variations in ferrimagnetic mineral concentration, mineralogy assemblages and grain size in Quaternary Red Earth profiles, suggesting that these variations reflect pedogenic processes fluctuation and environmental changes. The preliminary results indicate that mineral magnetic measurement of Quaternary Red Earth is useful for studying the Quaternary environmental changes recorded in paleosols.     

Two episodes of microbial change coupled with Permo/Triassic faunal mass extinction

Microbial expansion following faunal mass extinctions in Earth history can be studied by petrographic examination of microbialites (microbial crusts) or well-preserved organic-walled microbes. However, where preservation is poor, quantification of microbial communities can be problematic. We have circumvented this problem by adopting a lipid biomarker-based approach to evaluate microbial community changes across the Permo/Triassic (P/Tr) boundary at Meishan in South China. We present here a biomarker stratigraphic record showing episodic microbial changes coupled with a high-resolution record of invertebrate mass extinction. Variation in the microbial community structure is characterized by the 2-methylhopane (2-MHP) index (a ratio of the abundance of cyanobacterial biomarkers to more general bacterial biomarkers). Two episodes of faunal mass extinction were each preceded by minima in the 2-MHP index, followed by strong maxima, likely reflecting microbial responses to the catastrophic events that caused the extinction and initiated ecosystem changes. Hence, both cyanobacterial biomarker and invertebrate fossil records provide evidence for two episodes of biotic crisis across the P/Tr boundary.     

Determinants of extinction in the fossil record

The causes of mass extinctions and the nature of biological selectivity at extinction events are central questions in palaeobiology. It has long been recognized, however, that the amount of sedimentary rock available for sampling may bias perceptions of biodiversity and estimates of taxonomic rates of evolution. This problem has been particularly noted with respect to the principal mass extinctions. Here we use a new compilation of the amount of exposed marine sedimentary rock to predict how the observed fossil record of extinction would appear if the time series of true extinction rates were in fact smooth. Many features of the highly variable record of apparent extinction rates within marine animals can be predicted on the basis of temporal variation in the amount of exposed rock. Although this result is consistent with the possibility that a common geological cause determines both true extinction rates and the amount of exposed rock, it also supports the hypothesis that much of the observed short-term volatility in extinction rates is an artefact of variability in the stratigraphic record.     

四川野生荞麦种质资源的保护研究

四川省有着极为丰富的野生荞麦资源。但近年来,由于自然和人为的原因,野生荞麦栖息地和生态环境遭受严重破坏,致使野生荞麦分布区域萎缩,种群和植株数量减少,面临着濒危甚至灭绝的危险。本文在对野生荞麦资源野外实地调查的基础上,研究了四川野生荞麦的资源种类、地理分布、生态环境、目前状况、濒危原因等,并提出了保护措施和对策。