After Earth's worst mass extinction, surviving ocean animals spread worldwide. Stanford's model shows why this happened.

Learn about the climate changes that followed the end-Permian extinction, allowing select species to take over the planet's oceans.

The end-Permian mass extinction, which occurred approximately 252 million years ago, wiped out over 80% of marine species, and its impact on land has long been debated.

proposed multiple mechanisms for why different locations had remarkably similar inhabitants following the end-Permian extinction. One hypothesis is "ecological release," where the die-offs of certain ...