Geobiologists uncover links between ancient climate change and mass extinction
Thursday, January 27, 2011 - 14:10
in Paleontology & Archaeology
About 450 million years ago, Earth suffered the second-largest mass extinction in its historythe Late Ordovician mass extinction, during which more than 75 percent of marine species died. Exactly what caused this tremendous loss in biodiversity remains a mystery, but now a team led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has discovered new details supporting the idea that the mass extinction was linked to a cooling climate.