What Caused Earth’s Worst Mass Extinction Event?

The Great Dying

(Public domain)

Over 250 million years ago, long before the dinosaurs went extinct, another mass extinction event shaped all future life on Earth. The official name of this extinction is the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event which is colloquially known as the Great Dying. The Great Dying wiped out nearly all life on Earth. But what caused this event? How much of Earth’s prehistoric life did it destroy?

Earth is no stranger to mass extinction events. The dinosaurs were wiped out by a catastrophic extinction event that saw the downfall of large reptilians and the rise of small mammals. Some scientists believe we are in an ongoing mass extinction event known as the Holocene Extinction. Life always adapts and rebounds after such events. The Great Dying trumped all other mass extinction events in the sheer number of living species that went belly up.

If you think that the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs was bad, you haven’t seen anything yet.

The End Of An Era

The Great Dying was such an important geologic event that it is a well-known mark on the timeline of Earth’s long existence. The Great Dying formed the dividing line between the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras and the demarcation point between the Permian and Triassic geologic…