Mass Extinctions in Geological Time

A special issue of Geosciences (ISSN 2076-3263). This special issue belongs to the section "Sedimentology, Stratigraphy and Palaeontology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2018) | Viewed by 309

Special Issue Editor

Institute for the Environment, Brunel University, London, UK
Interests: mass extinctions; ancient organic reefs; calcified sponges; microbialites; sedimentary processes

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Geosciences aims to take advantage of the current expansion of interest in mass extinctions in the geological record. It is commonly considered that there are five major extinctions, but in recent times there is recognition of other extinctions that may lead to shift in thinking about only five. For example, the end-Devonian and middle Permian extinctions are becoming increasingly recognised as larger events than previously thought. Most work has focussed on marine extinctions, but there is increasing interest in terrestrial extinctions and the correlation between marine and terrestrial changes, to aim at a holistic understanding of events. Some thinking focuses on modern environmental change and the Anthropocene concept in relation to a possible current extinction event driven by humans. This is often called the “Sixth Extinction”, but this term may not be appropriate if there were really more than five in geological history. Therefore, our view of how mass extinction has affected geological history of life on Earth is subject to change as new work is published. Thus, we hope with this Special Issue to bring the understanding of mass extinctions into a more balanced perspective in a series of papers that span the occurrence of mass extinction in geological history.

You are warmly invited to submit a paper to this Special Issue. If your paper can present new material, discuss controversies, and provide new perspectives in mass extinction research, then that will be most welcome. The Special Issue is consequently intended to be broad-ranging in approach and papers focussing on both small-scale and large-scale aspects of mass extinctions will provide a valuable range of studies on this theme.

It will be very helpful if you can send me a short abstract explaining the aims and contents of your paper in order to verify at an early stage if the contribution you intend to submit fits with the objectives of the Special Issue.

Dr. Stephen Kershaw
Guest Editor

 

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Geosciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Mass extinction
  • Ocean anoxia
  • Glaciation
  • Sea-level fall
  • Volcanism
  • Ocean acidification
  • Anthropocene

Published Papers

There is no accepted submissions to this special issue at this moment.
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