Unlike the Earth’s “Big Five” great mass extinctions, scientists now think the first mass extinction, during the Ediacaran Period, may be like the “Sixth Extinction” happening today. Evolution was the ...

A wave of new research is forcing paleontologists to reconsider a basic question about life on Earth: when did the first mass extinction actually happen? Three studies published across Nature, Science ...

The Nature Index 2025 Research Leaders — previously known as Annual Tables — reveal the leading institutions and countries/territories in the natural and health sciences, according to their output in ...

The Cambrian Explosion is a landmark moment in the history of life on Earth when many of the major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record. New research, however, suggests that many of ...

A new study reveals that a region in China's Turpan-Hami Basin served as a refugium, or "life oasis," for terrestrial plants during the end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe biological crisis ...

The Cambrian explosion was an extraordinary phenomenon in the evolution of life on the planet that led to the emergence of many animal phyla and the diversification of species. During this period, ...

The Ordovician Period followed the Cambrian and it is recognized as a separate time interval because of differences in the kinds of animals found in each. As we saw in Chapter 3, the Cambrian came to ...

Researchers have gone back in time to find an extinction event that predates all other known events of their kind. The extinction event, which occurred during the Ediacaran Period roughly 550 million ...

Archaeology Poisonous gas wave may have snuffed out half of all sea life in Earth's 1st mass extinction About 510 million years ago, a deadly combination of low oxygen and surging hydrogen sulfide may ...