News tagged with mass extinction events

Land animals, ecosystems walloped after Permian dieoff

The cataclysmic events that marked the end of the Permian Period some 252 million years ago were a watershed moment in the history of life on Earth. As much as 90 percent of ocean organisms were extinguished, ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 26, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

New technique unlocks secrets of ancient ocean

Earth's largest mass extinction event, the end-Permian mass extinction, occurred some 252 million years ago. An estimated 90 percent of Earth's marine life was eradicated. To better understand the cause of ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 11, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (10) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Nemesis is a myth

Danger looms from out of space: asteroids and comets are a threat to our planet. The history of Earth has always been punctuated by cosmic catastrophes. Several studies have claimed to have found periodic ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Aug 01, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Relationship found between ancient climate change and mass extinction

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the Late Ordovician Period of Earth's geologic history, about 450 million years ago, more than 75 percent of marine species perished and Earth scientists have been seeking to discover what ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 18, 2011 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 2

Test shows dinosaurs survived mass extinction by 700,000 years

University of Alberta researchers determined that a fossilized dinosaur bone found in New Mexico confounds the long established paradigm that the age of dinosaurs ended between 65.5 and 66 million years ago.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jan 27, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (16) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Rolling the dice with evolution: Massive extinction will have unpredictable consequences

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research by Macquarie University palaeobiologist, Dr John Alroy, predicts major changes to the rules of evolution as we understand them now. Those changes will have serious consequences for future biodiversity ...

Biology / Evolution

created Sep 03, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (14) | comments 74 | with audio podcast

Prehistoric Fish Extinction Paved the Way for Modern Vertebrates

A mass extinction of fish 360 million years ago hit the reset button on Earth's life, setting the stage for modern vertebrate biodiversity, a new study reports.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 17, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Scientists link ocean acidification to prehistoric mass extinction

(PhysOrg.com) -- New evidence gleaned by analyzing calcium embedded in Chinese limestone suggests that volcanoes, which spewed massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for a million years, caused the biggest ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 27, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (13) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Getting WISE About Nemesis

Is our Sun part of a binary star system? An unseen companion star, nicknamed 'Nemesis,' may be sending comets towards Earth. If Nemesis exists, NASA's new WISE telescope should be able to spot it.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 11, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (10) | comments 2

Biologists merge methods, results from different disciplines to find new meaning in old data

A growing number of scientists are merging methods and results from different disciplines to extract new meaning from old data, says a team of researchers in a recent issue of Evolution.

Biology / Evolution

created Jan 11, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

Crashing comets not likely the cause of Earth's mass extinctions: new research

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have debated how many mass extinction events in Earth's history were triggered by a space body crashing into the planet's surface. Most agree that an asteroid collision 65 million ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jul 30, 2009 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (18) | comments 14

Fossil magnetism helps prove mass extinction theory

(PhysOrg.com) -- Were major extinction events real biological catastrophes or were they merely the result of gaps in the fossil record? Research by a team of geologists from the Universities of Bristol, Plymouth, ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 04, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (12) | comments 0

Dinosaurs declined before mass extinction

Dinosaurs were dying out much earlier than the mass extinction event 65 million years ago, Natural History Museum scientists report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society journal today.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Apr 30, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (15) | comments 5

New Blow for Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Theory

(PhysOrg.com) -- The enduringly popular theory that the Chicxulub crater holds the clue to the demise of the dinosaurs, along with some 65 percent of all species 65 million years ago, is challenged in a paper ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 27, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (32) | comments 14

Geologic Findings Undermine Theories of Permian Mass Extinction Timing

(PhysOrg.com) -- New scientific findings by geologist Robert Gastaldo of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and colleagues call into question popular theories about the largest mass extinction in Earth's ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 02, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (20) | comments 3


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