Scientists have presented what they describe as the strongest evidence yet explaining what caused Earth's largest mass extinction around 252 million years ago, concluding that rapidly warming oceans and falling oxygen levels drove the catastrophic event that wiped out most life on the planet.
The new Stanford University-led study , published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) , also explains why some marine animals survived while many others almost completely disappeared, reshaping ocean life for the next 252 million years.
