Diversity is central to one of the biggest questions paleontologists have about dinosaurs. Namely, were these ancient creatures already on the decline when that fateful asteroid came crashing out of the sky? A group of Earth scientists believes they probably were not. While it’s true that fossils from the final dinosaur era are comparatively rare […]
An Early Mass Extinction Event Cooked Our Planet and Erased Most Life
252 million years ago, volcanic eruptions in modern-day Siberia spewed 100 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere over the span of a million years. This natural disaster, called the “Great Dying,” killed most animals on the planet. New research shows that it also dramatically changed Earth’s ecosystems. An international team of […]