The 5 Mass Extinctions That Nearly Erased Life (Up to 90% Died)

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Life on Earth has never been stable — it has always teetered on the edge of collapse. In fact, most of the species that ever lived are already gone. Across deep time, five catastrophic events nearly erased everything: seas froze and drowned, forests poisoned the oceans, volcanoes suffocated the skies, continents tore apart, and finally, an asteroid ended the reign of the dinosaurs.

This is the quiet, unsettling story of the Big Five Mass Extinctions — the Ordovician, the Devonian, the Permian (The Great Dying), the Triassic, and the Cretaceous. Each one reset the planet, shaping life not through strength or grandeur, but through luck, adaptability, and survival in the margins.

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