A Prehistoric Murder Mystery: Earth's Worst Mass Extinctions

Paul Wignall is the author of "The Worst of Times: How Life on Earth Survived Eighty Million Years of Extinctions" (Princeton University Press). Beginning 260 million years ago, this phase included the worst mass extinction in Earth's history at the end of the Permian period, another mass extinction at the end of the Triassic period and several more major crises. The crises of this worst-ever 80 million years all share many features in common, especially intense global warming and remarkable cha