Since the first sharks emerged in the world’s oceans nearly half a billion years ago, the world has gone through five major ...

While the causes of the “big five” mass extinctions varied, understanding what happened during these dramatic chapters in Earth’s history — and what emerged in the aftermath of these ...

Five big mass extinction events are recognized by paleontologists. At the end of the Ordovician some 443 million years ago, when an estimated 86% of all marine species disappeared.

A mass extinction event wiped out around 90% of life. What followed has long puzzled scientists: The planet became lethally hot for 5 million years. Researchers say they have figured out why using a ...

Recovery from Extinctions: Whether extraterrestrial impacts or drastic climate changes are to blame, mass extinctions are evolutionary events that alter the history of life. Which species or ...

Extinction, the permanent death of an entire species, is as old as life itself. But against the constant ebb and flow of individual organisms, there have been particularly notable disasters—mass ...

The biggest mass cataclysm of all time, called the end-Permian extinction, occurred 252 million years ago. Some 95% of species disappeared on land and at sea as a result of global warming — with ...

The most famous of these mass extinction events — when an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, dooming the dinosaurs and many other species — is also the most recent.

(CNN) — No species lasts forever — extinction is part of the evolution of life. But at least five times, a biological catastrophe has engulfed the planet, killing off the vast majority of ...

At least five times, a catastrophe has killed off the vast majority of Earth’s species. As scientists say we’re in a sixth mass extinction, what can we learn from the past?