About 445 million years ago, Earth nearly wiped out life in the oceans. Glaciers spread across the supercontinent Gondwana, ...

Mass extinction events represent intervals of abrupt, large‐scale loss of biodiversity that have repeatedly reshaped life on Earth. These crises are commonly linked to dramatic environmental ...

The Silurian Period is characterised by a dynamic interplay between environmental stressors and biotic turnover, with extinction events and carbon isotope excursions (CIEs) representing pivotal ...

Earth has experienced five documented mass extinctions to date. With the sixth extinction around the corner, scientists are looking to the past to try and understand how life continues on after one of ...

Exploding stars in near-solar space may have triggered at least two mass extinction events in Earth's history. An analysis of the frequency of supernova explosions in the Milky Way, led by ...

Sharks might be the all time bullet-dodging champions. They’ve been around for about 450 million years, longer than trees, longer than the rings of Saturn, and longer than most of the other life on ...

Learn more about how the surprising survival of marine ecosystems after the last mass extinction can help us better prepare for the next one. Earth has experienced five documented mass extinctions to ...

Mass extinction sounds scary, but it’s basically nature’s biggest reset button. Throughout Earth’s history, there have been five major events where huge numbers of species disappeared quickly, and ...

Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for over 150 million years. Compared to the mere 4–6 million years that scientists believe humans and their earliest ancestors have been on the planet, it wouldn’t be ...

Supernova destroying planet, illustration. A rocky planet lies in the wake of its star, which has just gone supernova. The explosion shatters the planet. A complete census of massive stars in our part ...

A mass extinction created the ecological conditions that set the stage for a dramatic shift in marine life.

Extinction is inevitable. Expected. Almost all (99%) species that have ever existed have died out. Those disappearances have largely occurred at consistent background rates. But in the context of mass ...