Some 252 million years ago, the planet suffered the most catastrophic mass extinction event in its 4.5 billion-year history.
A trove of newly discovered fossils -- unearthed in Greenland by a team of palaeontologists -- have offered scientists a snapshot of the ecological recovery closer to the poles.
Even biodiversity far from the equator was obliterated.
"Life on the sea floor had totally collapsed, with up 90 percent of all species becoming extinct," Michal Zaton, a researcher from the University of Silesia in Poland, said in a news release.
TVNL Comment: Four out of ten Americans believe that the earth is less than ten thousand years old. Ignorance in the US explains a greal deal about their political choices.