Our planet’s first known mass extinction happened about 440 million years ago. Species diversity on Earth had been increasing over a period of roughly 30 million years, but that would come to a halt ...

The fossils were uncovered at a remote bonebed in present-day Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park. They date back to the late Triassic period and offer paleontologists a snapshot of an ecosystem ...

Everyone knows that dinosaurs are extinct, and most people have some idea about how it might have occurred. But the exact periods in history when it happened are less well known. Was it a single ...

The Triassic–Jurassic transition represents one of Earth’s most profound episodes of biological upheaval, characterised by extensive volcanic activity, rapid climatic shifts and cascading ...

A newly described dinosaur that appears to have persisted beyond a catastrophic die-off is forcing scientists to rethink how mass extinctions actually play out on the ground. Instead of a clean break ...

The mass extinction that ended the Permian geological epoch, 252 million years ago, wiped out most animals living on Earth. Huge volcanoes erupted, releasing 100,000 billion metric tons of carbon ...

The Jurassic Period is one of the three prehistoric geological periods of the Mesozoic Era. It spans from 145 million to 201 million years ago. This period was preceded by the Triassic Period and ...

A new study reveals that Earth's biomes changed dramatically in the wake of mass volcanic eruptions 252 million years ago. Reading time 3 minutes 252 million years ago, volcanic eruptions in ...

Ancient frog relatives survived the aftermath of the largest mass extinction of species by feeding on freshwater prey that evaded terrestrial predators, University of Bristol academics have found. In ...

The Palisades cliffs west of New York City rear up from the Hudson River like the spine of some ancient beast—and that impression is not far off. Their basalt backbone is a remnant of an immense lava ...

CREDIT: Illustration by Brian Engh. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and ...