Scientists have long treated mass extinctions as events locked deep in the fossil record. That framing now feels less distant. New research points to patterns that resemble earlier biological ...

A devastating ice age wiped out most marine life, yet new research reveals how this ancient disaster unexpectedly paved the ...

During these waves of mass extinction, most vertebrate survivors were confined to refugia, or isolated biodiversity hotspots ...

Some 445 million years ago, life on Earth was forever changed. During the geological blink of an eye, glaciers formed over ...

Discover how the first mass extinction put jawed fishes on the map, species that would later come to dominate animal life on ...

About 445 million years ago, Earth nearly wiped out life in the oceans. Glaciers spread across the supercontinent Gondwana, ...

A rapid climate collapse during the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction devastated ocean life and reshuffled Earth’s ecosystems.

A spectacular fossil trove on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen shows that marine life made a stunning comeback after Earth’s greatest extinction. Tens of thousands of fossils reveal fully aquatic ...

A massive ice age wiped out ocean life 445 million years ago, reshaping ecosystems and setting the stage for jawed fish ...

Mass extinction events represent intervals of abrupt, large‐scale loss of biodiversity that have repeatedly reshaped life on Earth. These crises are commonly linked to dramatic environmental ...

If you’re an animal living through a mass extinction, it’s best to be one that’s found a unique way to make a living. A new analysis of the species that lived or died out in the wake of the asteroid ...

The millions of species humans share the world with are valuable in their own right. When one species is lost, it has a ripple effect throughout the ecosystems it existed within.