Legal Insurrection readers will recall I have covered the five great mass extinction events throughout geologic history, including the “Great Dying” at the end of the Permian era and the asteroid-induced wipeout of the dinosaurs.
Scientists have uncovered evidence of a 6th mass extinction event. Shockingly, it has nothing to do with mankind or Paul Erlich.
The Ediacaran Period’s odd animals never got their chance to shine, thanks to a precarious drop in oxygen levels about 550 million years ago that triggered the first-ever extinction event. At least, that’s the latest theory. A recent study has announced the discovery of an extinction event preceding all five of Earth’s other known mass extinction events.
The study, published in November 2022 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, merged research from Virginia Tech and the University of California Riverside to reach the conclusion that the Ediacaran Period—which stretched from 635 million to 540