Home

250Mil BC

The worst mass extinction in Earth’s history occurred about this time.

Source:(SFC, 2/23/01, p.A1)(SFC, 6/10/02, p.A6)(Econ, 11/8/03, p.78)(SFC, 5/14/04, p.A1)

90% of life in the oceans and 70% of land animals disappeared within a million years due to a suspected asteroid impact. This was later called the "Permian-Triassic Extinction" and "The Great Dying." Scientists later suspected that an eruption of flood basalt in Russia, the Siberian Traps, caused the massive extinction. In 2004 scientists suggested that the extinction was caused by a meteorite that hit the north coast of Pangea, forming a crater known as the Bedout High, later a part of the Australian continent. [see 225 and 200 mil]