Land life spared in Permian extinction, geologists argue

New dates raise questions about the extent of the Great Dying

geologists

THE GREAT DYING  Geologists dated rocks in South Africa’s Karoo Basin and determined that land species thought to have died off during the Permian extinction actually disappeared over a million years earlier. 

R.A. Gastaldo

BALTIMORE — The greatest extinction in Earth’s history might not have been so great after all.