A quarter of a billion years ago, long before dinosaurs or mammals evolved, the predator Dinogorgon, whose skull is shown here, hunted floodplains in the heart of today's South Africa. In less than a ...

A new study reveals that a region in China's Turpan-Hami Basin served as a refugium, or "life oasis," for terrestrial plants during the end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe biological crisis ...

The mass extinction that ended the Permian geological epoch, 252 million years ago, wiped out most animals living on Earth. Huge volcanoes erupted, releasing 100,000 billion metric tons of carbon ...

Artistic reconstruction of the terrestrial ecological landscape before the end Permian mass extinction based on fossil palynomorphs, plants , and tetrapods recovered, as well as sedimentological data ...

While El Niño climate patterns today are responsible for prolonged droughts and high temperatures, during the end-Permian (some 251 million years ago), they contributed to what was nearly the end of ...

A cataclysm engulfed the planet some 252 million years ago, wiping out more than 90% of all life. Known as the Great Dying, the mass extinction that ended the Permian geological period was the worst ...

PLOS ONE has published a new study that sheds light on what happened after the mass extinction during the late Permian period that eradicated an estimated 81 percent of marine species. According to ...

Volcanic eruptions in Siberia 251 million years ago may have started a cascade of events leading to high hydrogen sulfide levels in the oceans and atmosphere and precipitating the largest mass ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Sep 15, 2024, 02:57pm EDT Sep 15, 2024, 03:21pm EDT The early ...