But occasionally, extinction rates have surged far beyond usual levels, driving mass extinction events that have reshaped the trajectory of life. After a year teaching an algorithm to differentiate ...

Five 'mass extinctions' have decimated our planet since it was formed - now scientists claim the answers to two could be written in the stars.

An extinction event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp change in the diversity ...

A region in China’s Turpan-Hami Basin served as a refugium - or “life oasis”- for terrestrial plants during the end-Permian ...

Whether extraterrestrial impacts or drastic climate changes are to blame, mass extinctions are evolutionary events that alter the history of life. Which species or groups survive a mass extinction ...

The four previous mass extinctions were also thought to have involved climatic changes—due to large-scale volcanic eruptions, for example—and in one case obliterated all but 5 percent of species. (See ...

And right now, we're in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event in the planet's 4.5 billion-year history. But surprisingly few Americans have ever heard of the extinction crisis, and even fewer ...

However, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event was not the worst loss of life ... of body sizes and functional variety expanded about 5 million years after the crisis and then dropped ...

Past extinction events offer clues about how the Earth has previously responded to being placed under such severe pressure. But how can we better understand this extinction? How does this ...