A new study suggests the epic ebbing and flowing of sea and sediment for eons upon eons account for world’s periodic mass extinctions over the past 500 million years.
“Impacts, for the most part, aren’t associated with most extinctions,” said Shanan Peters, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of geology and geophysics and leader of the study. “There have also been studies of volcanism, and some eruptions correspond to extinction, but many do not.”