The Silurian Period is characterised by a dynamic interplay between environmental stressors and biotic turnover, with extinction events and carbon isotope excursions (CIEs) representing pivotal ...

Speciation and extinction are the twin engines that have sculpted the diversity of life on Earth. Speciation, the process by which new species arise from ancestral populations, is driven by a mixture ...

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 ...

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 ...

About 66 million years ago – perhaps on a downright unlucky day in May – an asteroid smashed into our planet. Even groups that weathered the catastrophe, such as mammals, fishes and flowering plants, ...

When considering mass extinctions, people often think of the asteroid strike that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs. But life on Earth has experienced many extinction events. Now, a trove of fossils ...

At least two mass extinction events in Earth's history were likely caused by the 'devastating' effects of nearby supernova explosions, a new study suggests. Researchers say these super-powerful blasts ...

Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for over 150 million years. Compared to the mere 4–6 million years that scientists believe humans and their earliest ancestors have been on the planet, it wouldn’t be ...

The Late Ordovician mass extinction (LOME) was a pivotal event that reshaped life on Earth, and a recent study published in Science Advances has uncovered the role this catastrophic event played in ...

Supernova destroying planet, illustration. A rocky planet lies in the wake of its star, which has just gone supernova. The explosion shatters the planet. A complete census of massive stars in our part ...

Garbage in, garbage out. High protein, low fat. Cut the carbs and stay hydrated. It turns out it does matter what you eat, especially to crocodylians — crocodiles, alligators and gharials — a species ...

A new theory suggests depletion of trace elements in the oceans was a factor in three major mass extinction events in the past 600 million years, according to new research led by Flinders University's ...