"Welcome to the Black Triangle," said paleobiologist Cindy Looy as our van slowed to a stop in the gentle hills of the northern Czech Republic, a few miles from the German and Polish borders.

A new study reveals that a region in China's Turpan-Hami Basin served as a refugium, or "life oasis," for terrestrial plants during the end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe biological ...

The mass extinction that ended the Permian geological epoch, 252 million years ago, wiped out most animals living on Earth. Huge volcanoes erupted, releasing 100,000 billion metric tons of carbon ...