Marshall University’s Dr. Robin O’Keefe led research published on the cover of the prestigious journal Science. The research demonstrates that the extinction of ice age mammals — dire wolves, sabretooth cats, horses and other species — was driven by a series of catastrophic fires in Southern California 13,000 years ago. O’Keefe is a professor of Biological Sciences at Marshall, and his team used radiocarbon dates on extinct species from tar pits in Los Angeles for the study. Marshall University said on its website that the fire was caused by humans and climate change.
To learn more about the College of Science at Marshall University, visit www.marshall.edu/cos.