A new study reveals what caused most life on Earth to die out during the end-Permian extinction, also known as the Great Dying.

https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/cause-of-worst-mass-extinction-ever-found

PAUL RATNER26 June, 2021

Illustration showing the beginning of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. 2020.Credit: PaleoFactory, Sapienza University of Rome forJurikova et al., Nature Geoscience 2020.

• A new paper claims to identify the cause of the Great Dying that occured nearly 252 million years ago.
• During the worst mass extinction event ever, most of Earth’s life perished.
• The study suggests a volcanic eruption in Siberia spread aerosolized nickel particles that harmed organisms on the planet.

Dinosaurs are the most infamous victims of a mass extinction event 66 million years ago. But an even worse extinction happened 251.9 million years ago.

Called the end-Permian mass extinction or the Great Dying, this most severe of extinction events wiped out about 90 percent of the planet’s marine…