By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — January 27, 2026

Around 252 million years ago, life on Earth came closer to total collapse than at any other time in the planet’s history. This event, known as the Permian–Triassic extinction event, eliminated most complex life in both the oceans and on land. Scientists often call it the Great Dying—and the name is earned.

Unlike later extinctions made famous by dinosaurs or asteroids, this one unfolded through planetary systems failure. It was slow by human standards, fast by geological ones, and devastating beyond comparison.

A World Before the Collapse

Before the Great Dying, Earth was dominated by a single supercontinent, Pangaea. The climate was already warm, the oceans productive, and complex ecosystems stretched from shallow reefs to vast inland forests. Life had diversified for hundreds of millions of years. On the surface, the system appeared stable.

It was not.

What followed was not a single blow, but a chain reaction—one failure triggering another until recovery became impossible for most species.

The Scale of the Loss

The numbers remain difficult to grasp. Current estimates suggest that 90 to 96 percent of marine species disappeared. On land, roughly 70 percent of vertebrate species were wiped out. Entire branches of the evolutionary tree vanished. Coral reefs collapsed. Forests died back. Food webs unraveled.

This was not a localized disaster. It was global.

Not an Impact, but a Breakdown

There was no asteroid. No sudden flash of destruction. Instead, Earth’s internal systems slipped out of balance.

Evidence points to prolonged volcanic activity in what is now Siberia, where massive lava flows released enormous amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere. Over time, global temperatures rose sharply. Warmer oceans held less oxygen. Circulation slowed. Large portions of the seas became uninhabitable.

The planet did not explode. It suffocated.

Oceans Die First

The fossil record shows that the oceans collapsed before the land did. As oxygen levels fell, marine life faced conditions it could not escape. Some regions became anoxic—nearly devoid of oxygen. In extreme cases, toxic gases likely accumulated in the water column.

Once the oceans failed, the land followed. Marine ecosystems support atmospheric stability, nutrient cycles, and climate regulation. When they collapsed, terrestrial life lost its foundation.

Survival Was the Exception

A small number of organisms endured. These survivors shared traits that would define the post-extinction world: small size, low energy demands, and flexibility in diet and habitat. Specialized giants vanished. Generalists lived on.

Recovery did not happen quickly. It took millions of years for ecosystems to stabilize and even longer for biodiversity to return to previous levels. Life eventually rebounded—but only after passing through an evolutionary bottleneck unlike any other.

Why This Still Matters

The Great Dying is not remembered because it was dramatic. It matters because it shows how a planet can fail without a single catastrophic trigger. Gradual change, amplified by feedback loops, proved more destructive than any sudden impact.

This series will examine how that collapse unfolded, why it spread far beyond the regions directly affected, and how life—against long odds—eventually recovered.

Understanding the Great Dying is not about fear. It is about recognizing how fragile complex systems can be, and how survival often depends less on strength than on adaptability.

For more social commentary, please see Occupy 2.5 at https://Occupy25.com

This essay will be archived as part of the ongoing WPS News Monthly Brief Series available through Amazon.

References

Benton, M. J., & Twitchett, R. J. (2003). How to kill (almost) all life: The end-Permian extinction event. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 18(7), 358–365.
Burgess, S. D., Bowring, S. A., & Shen, S. (2014). High-precision timeline for Earth’s most severe extinction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(9), 3316–3321.
Erwin, D. H. (2006). Extinction: How life on Earth nearly ended 250 million years ago. Princeton University Press.

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