Creatures adapt to changing environments ... the fact that at the end of the Permian Period they were gone seems unthinkable. But it was before the Permian Period that damage had already been ...

Some have proposed that the disappearance of certain predators and competitors allowed some of the surviving creatures to thrive. And others have proposed that the climate changes associated with the ...

These toughened-up creatures represented a crucial innovation ... the world's oceans until they were wiped out in the Permian extinctions about 250 million years ago. Photograph by James L.

Toward the end of the Permian period, Earth was reeling from ... where the die-offs of certain predator and competitor creatures allow one surviving group of organisms to go gangbusters.

About 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, something killed some 90 percent of the planet's species. Less than 5 percent of the animal species in the seas survived. On land ...

Some areas in the Permian have hit geological limits while others, yet to be drilled, are not expected to be as prolific as the prime Tier 1 acreage. Despite record U.S. crude oil production ...