Late in the prehistoric Silurian Period, around 420 million years ago, a devastating mass extinction event wiped 23 percent of all marine animals from the face of the planet.

For years, scientists struggled to connect a mechanism to this mass extinction, one of the 10 most dramatic ever recorded in Earth’s history. Now, researchers from Florida State University have confirmed that this event, referred to by scientists as the Lau/Kozlowskii extinction, was triggered by an all-too-familiar culprit: rapid and widespread depletion of oxygen in the global oceans.

Their study, published today in the journal Geology, resolves a longstanding paleoclimate mystery, and raises urgent concerns about the ruinous fate that could befall our modern oceans if well-established trends of deoxygenation persist and accelerate.

Unlike other famous mass extinctions that can be tidily linked to discrete, apocalyptic calamities like meteor impacts or volcanic eruptions, there was no known, spectacularly destructive event responsible for the Lau/Kozlowskii extinction.

Read more at: Florida State University

For years, scientists struggled to connect a mechanism to this mass extinction, one of the 10 most dramatic ever recorded in Earth's history. Now, researchers from Florida State University have confirmed that this event, referred to by scientists as the Lau/Kozlowskii extinction, was triggered by an all-too-familiar culprit: rapid and widespread depletion of oxygen in the global oceans. (Photo Credit: Stephen Bilenky)

Arctic sea-ice has decreased rapidly during the last decades in concert with substantial global surface warming. 

An international team of scientists, studying evidence preserved in speleothems in a coastal cave, illustrate that more than three million years ago – a time in which the Earth was two to three degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial era – sea level was as much as 16 meters higher than the present day. 

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami reports that an Air Force plane is finding Dorian a “little stronger” as of the 8:00am EDT advisory put out today, Aug. 30, 2019.  

The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin (YRB-ML) generally enter the Mei-yu season in the period from mid-June to mid-July.

Variations in the depth of snow cover in the Arctic region from late winter to spring determines the summer temperature pattern in Eurasia, according to Hokkaido University researchers.

A new report released today by Australia’s lead management agency for the Great Barrier Reef highlights the urgent need for our continued and accelerated action to improve the long-term outlook for this great natural icon.

Researchers use geologic records from deep-sea drill cores to extend our knowledge of the geologic record.

We have been working on the consequences of increasing boreal wildfires since 2004, when a  huge swath of boreal forest burned in Alaska and the Yukon.

As Hurricane Dorian approaches Florida, U.S. Geological Survey field crews are working along a 280-mile stretch of the state’s Atlantic coastline, installing instruments that will track the hurricane’s effects as it comes ashore.