Oxygen is critical for life, but what promoted the first rise in atmospheric oxygen on Earth and precisely when it happened have been challenging scientists for the last 70 years.
Earth Sciences
Feb 28, 2022
4
1281
By applying an algorithm akin to what Facebook uses to make friend suggestions, researchers have identified communities of ancient life in the fossil record and tracked how their numbers changed through each of the planet's ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Feb 28, 2022
0
43
Curtin-led research has revealed an increase in levels of both acid and hydrogen sulfide in the ocean was the double whammy that wiped out marine life during a mass extinction event 201 million years ago.
Earth Sciences
Jan 11, 2022
6
1329
A team of scientists has identified an additional force that likely contributed to a mass extinction event 250 million years ago. Its analysis of minerals in southern China indicate that volcano eruptions produced a "volcanic ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 17, 2021
3
562
A team of paleontologists from the University of Washington and its Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture excavated four dinosaurs in northeastern Montana this summer. All fossils will be brought back to the Burke Museum ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Sep 21, 2021
0
6632
Life on Earth is most diverse at the equator. This pattern, where species biodiversity increases as we move through the tropics towards the equator, is seen on land and in the oceans, and has been documented across a broad ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 28, 2021
0
6
Pioneering research has shown marine ecosystems can start working again, providing important functions for humans, after being wiped out much sooner than their return to peak biodiversity.
Evolution
Jun 23, 2021
1
4
Over the course of Earth's history, several mass extinction events have destroyed ecosystems, including one that famously wiped out the dinosaurs. But none were as devastating as "The Great Dying," which took place 252 million ...
Ecology
Mar 17, 2021
1
880
The asteroid impact 66 million years ago that ushered in a mass extinction and ended the dinosaurs also killed off many of the plants that they relied on for food. Fossil leaf assemblages from Patagonia, Argentina, suggest ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jan 5, 2021
0
328
Charles Darwin's landmark opus "On the Origin of the Species" ends with a beautiful summary of his theory of evolution: "There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into ...
Evolution
Dec 10, 2020
14
14342
