Professor Roger Smith will give a talk titled Antarctic fossil bones: survivors of a mass extinction. The focus will be on the End-Permian mass extinction and recent research done in Antarctica to understand this event.

The diversity of living organisms on Earth today would have been very different had it not been for the great End-Permian mass extinction event. About 250 million years ago – during the age of the reptiles and long before mammals had evolved, something happened to kill off over 95% of living species within a few thousand years. What caused this global disaster is still not certain but some evidence is emerging from the rocks and fossils of the South African Karoo and Antarctica that indicates a major atmospheric disturbance resulted in rapid global warming.

Roger Smith will present his team’s latest findings on this topic and the trials and tribulations of conducting research from a remote field camp in the central Transantarctic Mountains.

• Lecture: Wednesday 28 November 2018 
• Speaker: Professor Roger Smith
• Title: Antarctic fossil bones: survivors of a mass extinction
• Venue: Iziko South African Museum, 25 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town 
• Time: 18:00
• Cost: Members on presentation of valid 2018 membership card–free of charge Non-members: A donation of R30.00