Diverse and full of sea life, the Earth's Devonian era—taking place more than 370 million years ago—saw the emergence of the first seed-bearing plants, which spread as large forests across the ...

Scientists discovered that ancient reef-building stromatoporoids survived the Late Devonian extinction, contrary to previous beliefs, and continued to thrive. The findings reveal how these organisms ...

Last year, hiking in Morocco’s eastern Atlas Mountains, I found an ammonite, a fossil of those spiral-shape cephalopods that to many symbolize paleontology itself. The fossilization process had turned ...

Stephen has degrees in science (Physics major) and arts (English Literature and the History and Philosophy of Science), as well as a Graduate Diploma in Science Communication. Stephen has degrees in ...

Paleontologists recognize five big mass extinctions in the fossil record, marked by the loss of a significant number of species in a (geologically speaking) short span of time. Theories to explain ...

There have been five unquestionably great extinctions on earth: the end-Ordovician, the late-Devonian, the end-Permian, end-Triassic, and the end-Cretaceous extinctions. Some think we are now in a ...

What is a mass extinction – and how many of them have there been? Will Newton takes a look the 'big five' extinction events ...

Will modern coral reefs go extinct? The answer is uncertain, but some of their ancient counterparts managed to dodge a bullet — for a while, at least. Scientists from Osaka Metropolitan University ...