The forgotten marine extinction
A third of the ocean's large animals die out, and nobody noticed until 2017.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 620 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 300 thousand years
- Era
- Pliocene, Cenozoic
Analysis of the marine fossil record published in 2017 identified a previously unrecognised extinction among large marine animals — mammals, seabirds, turtles and sharks — in the late Pliocene, with extinction rates roughly three times the Cenozoic background and 36 per cent of genera failing to reach the Pleistocene. Coastal species were hit hardest, consistent with sea-level swings destroying shallow habitat as the ice sheets grew. The loss of functional diversity in coastal ecosystems was disproportionately large.