From the beginning of the Ordovician, marine life began its great radiation outward, which was characterized by the rapid appearance of new orders, families, and genera, together with the replacement ...

During the Ordovician period, the concentration of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere was about eight times higher than today. It has been hard to explain why the climate cooled and why the Ordovician ...

Fossils from 465 million years ago recently discovered in Portugal have revealed the huge size reached by trilobites, the most diverse group of extinct marine arthropods. Geologists describe the ...

A rapid climate collapse during the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction devastated ocean life and reshuffled Earth’s ecosystems. In the aftermath, jawed vertebrates gained an unexpected edge by surviving ...

Learn more about the time period that took place 488 to 443 million years ago. 3 min read During the Ordovician period, part of the Paleozoic era, a rich variety of marine life flourished in the vast ...

How long did the Ordovician period last, and what caused the Ordovician mass extinction to wipe out 85 percent of life on earth 445 million years ago? Long before the dawn of humans, dinosaurs, ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

The first mass die-off on Earth was also one of the deadliest. Scientists continue to piece together the story of what happened. Some mass extinctions unfold like a sloppy murder, leaving clear ...

Over half a billion years ago, during the Cambrian geological period, life on Earth started to get a lot more interesting. Thanks to the rise in free oxygen generated mostly by photosynthesizing algae ...