Depletion of the ozone layer led to mass extinction

Palaeobotanists analyse plant fossils 252 million years old. Prof. Benjamin Bomfleur ( right ) and Dr. Phillip Jardine discuss their samples in the lab. Münster University - Peter Leßmann 252 million years ago, there occurred the greatest mass extinction in the history of the Earth up to that time: three-quarters of life on land and up to 95 percent of marine species vanished within just a few thousand years. This far-reaching event at the end of the Permian period marked the transition to a new age - that of the dinosaurs. The catastrophic extent of this mass extinction in the oceans has been known and well documented for a long time now. "However, there has been far less research undertaken into the extent to which life on land was affected by this event," says Prof. Benjamin Bomfleur. Bomfleur's team of researchers at the Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at Münster University have now taken a decisive step forward: they determined that the extinction occurred at the same time as huge volcanic eruptions in what is today Siberia.