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250 million years ago something wiped out most life Posted: Monday, January 28, 2002 Some perpetrator -- or perpetrators -- committed murder on a scale unequaled in the history of the world. They left few clues to their identity, and they buried all the evidence under layers and layers of earth. The case has gone unsolved for years -- 250 million years, that is. But now the pieces are starting to come together, thanks to a team of NASA-funded sleuths who have found the "fingerprints" of the villain, or at least of one of the accomplices Above: Life was flourishing on the Earth about 250 million years ago, then during a brief window of geologic time nearly all of it was wiped out. This image is an artist's impression of a Lower Permian swamp in Texas. More Send page by E-Mail |