Fifty thousand years ago, North America's landscapes were alive with an astonishing array of enormous creatures. Massive ...

The Cambrian explosion, long hailed as one of the most significant events in the history of life on Earth, has now been ...

A study of fossils from the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago shows that forests in many parts of the world were wiped out, disrupting the carbon cycle and ensuring that Earth re ...

As climate change threatens tropical forests, a new study shows how the loss of those forests can be devastating to life on ...

The contemporary species hails from a 230-million-year lineage that has survived two mass extinction events. A study in the journal Palaeontology identifies flexibility as a key to their longevity.

Apart from this, there is evidence of a smaller extinction affecting the oceans around 183 million years ago. At this time, marine species such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs thrived in the oceans.

Earth’s largest mass extinction, often referred to as the “Great Dying,” occurred about 252 million years ago. Massive volcanic eruptions triggered catastrophic climate changes that altered ...

The end-Permian mass extinction occurred around 252 million years ago, and wiped out over 80% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species due to extreme environmental changes including global ...

But the first major mass extinction was way before that – about 443 million years ago. It’s called the Late Ordovician mass extinction. Back then, most living things were in the ocean.

Travel back in time even further to around 250 million years ago, and the Great Dying – more formally known as the Permian-Triassic extinction event – wiped out members of all classes of life.

At present, nobody is forecasting another mass extinction on the scale of the one 252 million years ago, but that event provides a worrying snapshot of what happens when El Niño gets out of control.