Just over half a billion years ago, Earth was rocked by a global mass extinction event, a dramatic interruption of the ...

About 445 million years ago, Earth’s oceans turned into a danger zone. Glaciers spread across the supercontinent Gondwana, and shallow seas shrank fast.

Around 540 million years ago, Earth's biosphere underwent a pivotal transformation, shifting from a microbe-dominated world ...

The fossils offer a rare glimpse into a cataclysmic event that brought a sudden end to the greatest explosion of life in our ...

Humans have wiped out hundreds of species — with many more on the brink or experiencing large declines in population. Some scientists have argued that we have entered a “sixth mass extinction” event ...

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 ...

Learn how social connections may influence extinction risk in some wildlife species.

The Earth has suffered five mass extinctions. Human activities are now accelerating climate change and the threat of the "Sixth Mass Extinction". We analyze the past to consider what we should do.

Violent supernovas may have caused two of Earth’s largest mass extinctions that have never been completely explained, according to a theory put forward in new research.During the final stages of a ...

Imagine an asteroid striking Earth and wiping out most of the human population. Even if some lucky people survived the impact, Homo sapiens might still face extinction, because the social networks ...