Prehistoric Climate Change Damaged The Ozone Layer And Led To A Mass Extinction Study Finds
My colleagues and I have published new research on the mass extinction that took place 359 million years ago at the boundary between the Devonian and Carboniferous geological periods. There have been many previous speculations as to the cause of this event, including volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, climate change, sea level changes, wildfires and the rise of the first forests. But we have shown that the extinctions on land at this time may have been caused by a catastrophic thinning of the ozone layer that let in damaging levels of ultra-violet radiation....