Re: mass extinction

[Phil Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com>]

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 19:57:03 -0500 Jeff Hecht <jeff@jeffhecht.com>
writes:

> Remember that the Pleistocene lasted over two million years, and 
> during that time the flora and fauna had evolved to survive a series 
> of glacial/interglacial cycles of varying duration. Successive ice 
> ages did wipe out evidence of previous glacial/interglacial cycles, 
> but from what I've read and investigated, there isn't much evidence 
> of major megafaunal extinctions during previous interglacial thaws. 
> That's an important part of the evidence that humans were linked to 
> the Pleistocene extinction -- our widespread presence was something 
> that differed from prior interglacials. 


One could argue that we are still "within" the Pleistocene.  Past
interstades have lasted longer than 10,000 years...........

<pb>
--