About 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, something killed some 90 percent of the planet's species. Less than 5 percent of the animal species in the seas survived. On land ...

The Permian period wasn’t just ancient history—it was a full-blown nightmare. From supervolcanoes to the deadliest mass extinction Earth has ever seen, this era was a nonstop survival challenge.

or "life oasis," for terrestrial plants during the end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe biological crisis since the Cambrian period. The discovery, led by Prof. Liu Feng, from the Nanjing ...