Our planet’s first known mass extinction happened about 440 million years ago. Species diversity on Earth had been increasing over a period of roughly 30 million years, but that would come to a halt ...

Asteroid impacts and volcanism have led to mass extinctions on our planet. Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz / NASA / Public Domain Life’s first major catastrophe crept across the planet with the ...

Sharks might be the all time bullet-dodging champions. They’ve been around for about 450 million years, longer than trees, longer than the rings of Saturn, and longer than most of the other life on ...

Over the course of Earth’s history, life has been decimated by cataclysmic events, each one leaving an indelible mark on the planet’s biodiversity. For millions of years, creatures that once thrived ...