Thinking Like A Wartime President -- March 31, 2020

Thinking like a wartime president.

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The Paleontology Page

Today's review of paleontology was the transition from fish to mammal-like reptiles, which for the most part:

• tectonic plates;
• Vaalbara
• Rodinia
• Gondwana in the southern hemisphere
• Pangaea
• evolution of amphibians
• the Triassic extinction (fourth in severity of the five major extinction episodes)
• also called the Triassic-Jurassic extinction; global; 76% of all marine and terrestrial species about 20% of all taxonomic families; 
• believed to be the key moment that allowed the dinosaurs to become the dominant land animals on earth
• the Permian-Triassic extinction (the "mother of all extinctions);
• 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct; even insects took a big hit; the only one in their (insect) history;
• the "Noah" of the survivors of the Permian-Triassic extinction? a pig-like herbivore, genus Lystrosaurus