(Dawid Adam Iurino/PaleoFactory/Sapienza University of Rome) For the first 280 million years of animal life on Earth, ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover aerospace, astronomy & hosted The Cosmic Controversy Podcast. Mar 17, 2025, 06:12am EDT Mar 17, 2025, 01:42pm EDT Masai ...

How long did the Ordovician period last, and what caused the Ordovician mass extinction to wipe out 85 percent of life on earth 445 million years ago? Long before the dawn of humans, dinosaurs, ...

Scientists are increasingly worried we may be witnessing the start of the “sixth mass extinction” – the first to be caused by human activities. Five earlier mass extinctions, caused by dramatic but ...

Around 252 million years ago, the Earth experienced its largest mass extinction. Known as the “Great Dying,” this cataclysmic event wiped out more than 81% of marine species and 70% of life on land.

This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Genetic diversity could shrink as animals venture into new territories because of global heating, leaving ...

Smithsonian scientist’s research illustrates how North American ecosystems are still reeling from the megafaunal extinction that closed the ice ages Jack Tamisiea During the late Pleistocene, ...

Analysis of the fossil record shows a mysterious mass extinction that decimated the diversity of sharks in the world’s oceans, and they’ve never fully recovered. By Katherine Kornei Extinctions that ...

Last year, hiking in Morocco’s eastern Atlas Mountains, I found an ammonite, a fossil of those spiral-shape cephalopods that to many symbolize paleontology itself. The fossilization process had turned ...

It struck the seas off the coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula with the force of billions of atomic bombs, carving out the 112-mile-wide Chicxulub crater. The asteroid vaporized almost instantly.