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mass extinction event
Introduction References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics
Images & Videos
computer-generated image of the Chicxulub crater
Illustration showing a massive asteroid above a city map with a dinosaur silhouette for scale, highlighting the asteroid's size compared to major urban areas.
This infographic presents a timeline of the five major mass extinction events in Earth's history-Devonian, Ordovician-Silurian, Permian, End-Triassic, and Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T or K-Pg)-with descriptions of each event's timing, causes, and impact on marine animal families, illustrated by a graph showing the diversity and decline of marine animal families over geologic time.
What are the Different Types of Extinction?
trilobite The Chicxulub asteroid Line graph showing the number of marine animal families from the Precambrian era to the present, with illustrations of key groups such as trilobites, ammonoids, marine reptiles, and diatoms. The graph highlights major extinction events and a rise to 1,900 living families today.

mass extinction event: References & Edit History

Article Contributors

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  • The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
    Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.

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Article History

Type Description Contributor Date
Modified link of Web site: The Royal Society Publishing - Royal Society Open Science - How predictable are mass extinction events? Oct 17, 2026
Added media. May 18, 2026
Add new Web site: Biology LibreTexts - Mass Extinctions. Apr 28, 2026
Media added. Mar 25, 2026
Add new Web site: LOUIS Pressbooks - Modern World History - The Anthropocene. Jan 10, 2026
Add new Web site: Khan Academy - A brief history of mass extinctions. Jun 26, 2025
Add new Web site: The Royal Society Publishing - Royal Society Open Science - How predictable are mass extinction events? May 15, 2025
Add new Web site: National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Theory and classification of mass extinction causation. Feb 08, 2025
Add new Web site: BBC - Biodiversity: What is a mass extinction and are we causing one? May 13, 2024
Add new Web site: Cell Press - Current Biology - Mass extinctions. Mar 06, 2024
Add new Web site: CNN World - What is a mass extinction, and why do scientists think we’re in the middle of one? Jan 19, 2024
Add new Web site: Academia - Mass extinction events and the plant fossil record. Dec 07, 2023
Add new Web site: University of California Museum of Paleontology - What causes mass extinctions? Oct 11, 2023
Add new Web site: Live Science - The 5 mass extinction events that shaped the history of Earth � and the 6th that's happening now. Aug 28, 2023
Media added. Jun 16, 2023
Link added. Jun 01, 2023
Add new Web site: The Royal Society Publishing - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - Mass extinctions alter extinction and origination dynamics with respect to body size. May 05, 2023
Add new Web site: PNAS - The tempo of mass extinction and recovery: The end-Permian example. Mar 22, 2023
Add new Web site: Natural History Museum - What is mass extinction and are we facing a sixth one? Jan 12, 2023
Noted that about 90 percent of all species died out during the Permian extinction. Nov 28, 2022
New article added. Jun 30, 2022
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