A Guide to the Most Destructive Events in the History of Earth

If you want some epical disaster tales this eve , you’re able to watch thisHow material solve podcastabout possible cause of the five mass extinctions that nigh snuff out all life on Earth . After that cheerful topic , I also talk about why scientists believe we ’re heading into a sixth mass defunctness .

I ’ve been haunt with aggregate extinction for some clock time , andeven publish a Koran about ita span age ago . What I ’m discussing here are some of my favourite scientific supposition ( sorry — I prognosticate them theories , but I meant hypotheses ! ) about what caused horrific plenty extinctions in deep geological chronicle . sympathise these previous case let us to make judgements about whether we ’re in another aggregative extinction period right now . More significantly , it help us figure out how we might terminate the extinctions before they reach the epic levels required to qualify for a mass extinction .

Many thanks to Christian Sager and all the folk at How Stuff Works , who recorded this late last yr at DragonCon .