Using the fossil record to accurately estimate the timing and pace of past mass extinctions is no easy task, and a new study highlights how fossil evidence can produce a misleading picture if not interpreted with care.
Ecology
Sep 14, 2018
1
86
A study that examined the shape of hundreds of fossilized shark teeth suggests that modern shark biodiversity was triggered by the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event, about 66 million years ago.
Archaeology
Aug 2, 2018
0
114
Fossil records tell us that the first macroscopic animals appeared on Earth about 575 million years ago. Twenty-four million years later, the diversity of animals began to mysteriously decline, leading to Earth's first know ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 27, 2018
8
71
Sixty-six million years ago, the world burned. An asteroid crashed to Earth with a force one million times larger than the largest atomic bomb, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. But dinosaurs weren't the only ones ...
Archaeology
May 24, 2018
2
298
The late Devonian extinction, about 370 million years ago, is one of the 'Big Five.' It killed up to 80 percent of species, obliterating the lavish Devonian coral reef ecosystem. The final pulse in this multi-step crisis, ...
Earth Sciences
May 1, 2018
4
311
About 252 million years ago, more than 90 percent of all animal life on Earth went extinct. This event, called the "Permian-Triassic mass extinction," represents the greatest catastrophe in the history of life on Earth. Ecosystems ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 17, 2018
5
781
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have discovered key conditions that give rise to fast magnetic reconnection, the process that triggers solar flares, auroras, ...
Plasma Physics
Mar 2, 2018
19
92
Scientists from the University of Bristol have revealed that ray-finned fishes are perhaps one of Earth's most resilient groups of animals, having survived four mass extinction events that wiped out many other groups.
Evolution
Feb 5, 2018
0
51
Millions of years ago, a mountain range that would have dwarfed the Andes mountains in South America, stretched over what is currently the southern-most tip of Africa.
Earth Sciences
Oct 18, 2017
0
721
While burning coal today causes Earth to overheat, about 300 million years ago, the formation of coal brought the planet close to global glaciation. For the first time, scientists show the massive effect in a study to be ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 9, 2017
20
361
