Crisis and Response: Current Trends and Future Prospects

New technologies have continuously expanded the questions palaeontologists and other geologists can explore about mass extinctions, biodiversity crises and the subsequent biotic rebounds. From international correlations in the 1950s, to stable isotopes, high-resolution geochronology and modeling efforts, mass extinctions have been revealed as more sudden in timing and often more catastrophic in extent than had been recognised. These and other tools are now being applied to understanding the dynamics of recovery after mass extinctions, which have been revealed to be quite complex. As the spatial and temporal resolution increases palaeontologists have increasingly been able to interrogate the ecological dynamics of these events, a trend that seems likely to expand in the future.