The dinosaurs weren’t the only die-off in Earth’s past. And, hey, we are living in the middle of an ongoing massive extinction right now. Life – with a few exceptions like alligators, coelacanths, and a few other critters – is fragile. Our world has had five other massive extinctions, and trying to figure them out is an ongoing challenge.

Researchers hunt through the geologic record for any and all details on just what might be to blame, and in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, research by Theodore Green, Paul R. Renne, and C. Brenhin Keller associates these five extinctions with massive volcanic events. It’s possible that external factors triggered these events, but this is a start.

And a reminder to just keep monitoring volcanoes – not that we can stop them – but so we at least have some warning.

More Information

Dartmouth College press release

“Continental flood basalts drive Phanerozoic extinctions,” Theodore Green, Paul R. Renne, and C. Brenhin Keller, 2022 September 12, PNAS