Scientists believe they have solved the world’s murder mystery: the disappearance of a group of marine animals called Malvinoxhosan biota from the ancient supercontinent Gondwana.
From around 550 million years ago until approximately 180 million years ago, Gondwana coexisted with Laurasia as a supercontinent.
South America, Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica were all part of Gondwana.
The murder mystery that dates back 390 million years
The so-called Malvinoxhosan biota – an ancient group of water-dwelling animals — is thought to have vanished from Gondwana over a five-million-year span. For generations, it was unknown what caused their disappearance.
A recent study has laid the finger on climate change. The study, which was published on October 13 in the journal Earth-Science Reviews, discovered that climate change caused a severe drop in sea levels, eradicating the group of marine species.
“It’s a 390-million-year-old murder mystery,” said study lead author Cameron Penn-Clarke.
How did climate change annihilate the Malvinoxhosan biota?
According to the researchers, who reanalyzed hundreds of fossils from the Malvinoxhosan biota, the fall in water level was not directly responsible for their extinction but rather produced climate changes to which they were unable to adapt.
The decline in sea level interrupted ocean currents known as “circumpolar thermal barriers,” allowing warmer equatorial water to mix with cooler southern waters.
However, Malvinoxhosan biota creatures are designed to live in chilly water. They eventually vanished, resulting in a “complete collapse” of the environment surrounding the South Pole.
“This research is important when we consider the biodiversity crisis we are facing in the present day,” Penn-Clarke said.
“It demonstrates the sensitivity of polar environments and ecosystems to changes in sea level and temperature,” he added, warning, “Any changes that occur are, unfortunately, permanent.”
The investigation also indicated that the phenomena that wiped out marine life at the South Pole millions of years ago had troubling parallels to the current predicament.