Roughly 430 million years ago, during the Earth’s Silurian Period, global oceans were experiencing changes that would seem eerily familiar today. Melting polar ice sheets meant sea levels were steadily […]
extinction
Posted inExtinction events, Press Release
Clues To Recovery From Mass Extinction
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 […]
Posted inExtinction events, Press Release
Muon Radiation Dose and Marine Megafaunal Extinction at the end-Pliocene Supernova
Considerable data and analysis support the detection of a supernova at a distance of about 50 pc, ~2.6 million years ago. This is possibly related to the extinction event around […]
Posted inExtinction events, Press Release
Fossils Reveal Global Ecosystem Recovery After Mass Extinction
A new study published in Scientific Reports shows how higher latitude ecosystems recovered after the World’s most cataclysmic extinction event 252 million years ago. “Life on the sea floor had […]
Posted inAstrobiology (general), Impact events, Press Release
Does Dark Matter Cause Mass Extinctions and Geologic Upheavals?
Research by New York University Biology Professor Michael Rampino concludes that Earth’s infrequent but predictable path around and through our Galaxy’s disc may have a direct and significant effect on […]
Posted inImpact events
Asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs may have nearly knocked off mammals, too
The extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago is thought to have paved the way for mammals to dominate, but a new study shows that many mammals died off […]
Posted inExtinction events
Ancient Food Webs Show Modern Structure After Mass Extinction
Researchers have pieced together a highly detailed picture of feeding relationships among 700 mammal, bird, reptile, fish, insect, and plant species from a 48 million year old lake and forest […]
Posted inImpact events
Mapping the Demise of the Dinosaurs
About 65 million years ago, an asteroid or comet crashed into a shallow sea near what is now the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The resulting firestorm and global dust cloud […]