No matter how well adapted an animal may be, it can spell evolutionary doom to have feathers or even shells that become coveted by human beings. Take the nautilus, a creature that pulled easily through the asteroid impact ...
Archaeology
Jul 23, 2012
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A new study indicates that mass extinctions affect the pace of evolution, not just in the immediate aftermath of catastrophe, but for millions of years to follow. The study's authors, University of Chicago's Andrew Z. Krug ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 2, 2012
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(Phys.org) -- It took some 10 million years for Earth to recover from the greatest mass extinction of all time, latest research has revealed.
Earth Sciences
May 27, 2012
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(Phys.org) -- The second-largest mass extinction in Earth's history coincided with a short but intense ice age during which enormous glaciers grew and sea levels dropped. Although it has long been agreed that the so-called ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 10, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A collection of new fossil finds in Scotland that date back to the 15 million year period between 345 and 360 million years ago are helping to fill the almost blank fossil record during a period that had ...
Following one of Earth's five greatest mass extinctions, tiny marine organisms called graptoloids did not begin to rapidly develop new physical traits until about 2 million years after competing species became extinct.
Evolution
Feb 13, 2012
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A painstakingly detailed investigation shows that mass extinctions need not be sudden events. The deadliest mass extinction of all took a long time to kill 90 percent of Earth's marine life, and it killed in stages, according ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 3, 2012
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New research reveals how the arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages. Led by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, the study is published today (February 1, 2012) in Nature Geoscience.
Earth Sciences
Feb 1, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- At the end of the Cretaceous period some 65 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, causing severe but selective extinction. While that is widely accepted, it has remained ...
Around 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian geologic period, there was a mass extinction so severe that it remains the most traumatic known species die-off in Earth's history. Although the cause of this event ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 9, 2012
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