Earth has a flair for dramatic resets, though it usually takes millions of years to deliver them. Over its long history, life has been knocked back by volcanic eruptions, climate swings, changing seas ...

It’s sad when living things go extinct. That means they’re gone forever. I think about extinct unicorns all. the. time. My friend Jodi Rosso told me that a mass extinction is when a huge number of ...

A pair of Sacabambaspis fish, around 35 cm in length, which had distinct, forward-facing eyes and an armored head. No fossils of animals like Sacabambaspis from after the Late Ordovician Mass ...

Scientists discovered hidden phosphorus spikes in ancient limestone that may help explain two of Earth’s worst marine mass ...

The “Big Five” mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic Eon have long attracted significant attention from the geoscience community and the public. Among them, the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction (LOME) is ...

New study reveals brief, globally coherent phosphorus spikes linked to ancient marine mass extinctions. The findings highlight how nutrient-cycle disruption can contribute to ocean oxygen loss and ...

Scientists at NASA and the University of Kansas say that a mass extinction on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago could have been triggered by a star explosion called a gamma-ray burst. The ...

Rapid changes in marine oxygen levels may have played a significant role in driving Earth's first mass extinction, according to a new study. Rapid changes in marine oxygen levels may have played a ...

Paleontologists recognize five big mass extinctions in the fossil record. At the end of the Ordovician period, about 443 million years ago, an estimated 86 percent of all marine species disappeared.

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 ...