Great Dying" Lasted 200,000 Years

Long before the dinosaurs, a bleak environment of widespread fires and oxygen-poor coastal seawater killed off some 90 percent of all Earth's living species. The whole process took less than 200,000 years, according to a new study of the planet's most catastrophic mass-extinction event. 

 Researchers claim that the extinction occurred around 252.28 million years ago.This was supported by Analysis the fossils and studying the Earth's Carbon cycle in rocks from southern China to Tibet. While scientists are attributing incidents such as rapid deforestation , volcanic eruptions and low-oxygen waters,the exact causes of this (Permian)extinction remain a mystery.

"Whatever mechanism you invoke [as the cause of the mass extinction] can't be purely marine or purely continental.", said Sam Bowring of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Interestingly. the National Geographic leaves an important ponder-able point at the end. It says, "The researchers say it's tough to tell yet how the Great Dying's extinction rates compare with current rates, which scientists struggle to agree on but which some believe to be among the highest on record...But the past may still hold lessons."

All info as well as the photograph collected from National Geographic website