Many techniques have been developed for the measurement of pressure and vacuum. Instruments used to measure and display pressure in an integral unit are called pressure gauges or vacuum gauges. A manometer is a good example as it uses a column of liquid to both measure and indicate pressure.
Figure 1: Timeline of mass extinction events. The five named vertical bars indicate mass extinction events. Black rectangles (drawn to scale) represent global reef gaps and brick-pattern shapes show times of prolific reef growth (Veron 2008). There have been five mass extinction events throughout Earth's history: 1  The first great mass extinction event took place at the end of the Ordovician, when according to the fossil record, 60% of all genera of both terrestrial and marine life worldwide were exterminated.
The typical rate of extinction differs for different groups of organisms. Mammals, for instance, have an average species lifespan from origination to extinction of about 1 million years, although some species persist for as long as 10 million years. There are about 5,000 known mammalian species alive at present.