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mass extinction event
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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.
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Videos

How Big Was the Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs?
This rock would take out more than just a T. rex.
Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
What are the Different Types of Extinction?
The die-off of the dinosaurs is different from the extinction of the dodo.
Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Images

computer-generated image of the Chicxulub crater
Chicxulub crater, on the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, in a...
V.L. Sharpton, University of Alaska, Fairbanks; NASA
Diagram showing the details of Earth's five past mass extinction events along with the current extinction episode.
Fossil evidence reveals five mass extinction events in geologic time. Many scientists...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
trilobite
The trilobite Modocia typicalis lived during the middle of the Cambrian...
© ScottOrr—iStock/Getty Images
The Chicxulub asteroid
An artist's rendering of the impact of a near-Earth object 66 million years ago in...
NASA; illustration by Don Davis
marine family diversity
The diversity of marine animal families since late Precambrian time. The data for...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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