A team of scientists has found new evidence to bolster the idea that the Permian Extinction, which occurred 252 million years ago, was caused by massive volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia.

The Great Dying, The Big One — The Permo-Triassic!
(In a time machine, not sure if that’s where I’d aim …)
As extinctions go, this one’s a blockbuster classic,
When most of Earth’s species dropped out of the game.

With life, legged and finned, Earth had been teeming,
Slitherers, predators, graceful trees tall …
Now, of these species, we are only dreaming:
Glossopteris, trilobites, eurypterids, all.