The Siberian Traps, also called Сибирские траппы in Russian, are a large area of volcanic rock in Siberia, Russia. This region is part of a large igneous province, which is a term for areas covered by vast amounts of volcanic rock. A flood basalt event, where huge amounts of basaltic lava spread across Siberia, formed the Siberian Traps.
The Permian–Triassic extinction event, commonly known as the Great Dying, occurred at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods, marking the end of the Paleozoic era and the beginning of the Mesozoic era. This event is Earth’s most severe known extinction, with the loss of 57% of biological families, 62% of genera, 81% of marine species, and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species. It also caused the greatest known mass extinction of insects.
Trilobites (pronounced “TRY-luh-BYTS” or “TRIL-uh-BYTS”; meaning “three-lobed entities”) are extinct marine arthropods that belong to the class Trilobita. They were among the first arthropods to appear in the fossil record and were some of the most successful early animals. Trilobites lived in oceans for nearly 270 million years, and scientists have identified over 22,000 species.
Pikaia gracilens is an ancient, early chordate marine animal found in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Scientists first described it in 1911 as an annelid, but in 1979, researchers Harry B. Whittington and Simon Conway Morris reclassified it as a chordate.
Hallucigenia is a group of lobopodians found in Cambrian-aged fossils in Burgess Shale-type deposits in Canada (Burgess Shale) and China, as well as in isolated spines discovered worldwide. The name Hallucigenia comes from the strange appearance of its type species and the unusual way scientists first studied it; when it was first classified, H. sparsa was mistakenly reconstructed as an animal that was upside down and backward.
The Murchison meteorite is a meteorite that fell in Australia in 1969 near Murchison, Victoria. It is part of the carbonaceous chondrite class, a group of meteorites that contain many organic compounds. Because of its large size (more than 100 kilograms or about 220 pounds) and the fact that scientists observed its fall, the Murchison meteorite is one of the most studied meteorites in the world.
Panspermia (from Ancient Greek πᾶν (pan) “all” and σπέρμα (sperma) “seed”) is a scientific idea that suggests life exists throughout the universe and spreads through space via cosmic dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and planetoids. It also includes the possibility of microorganisms traveling on spacecraft that accidentally carry them. This theory suggests that life did not begin on Earth but instead developed elsewhere and later spread to Earth.
The Lost City Hydrothermal Field, often called Lost City, is a location in the Atlantic Ocean where underwater vents release alkaline water. It is found on the Atlantis Massif, where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge meets the Atlantis Transform Fault. This area has been active for a long time, with processes involving certain types of rocks naturally creating simple molecules like methane and hydrogen.
Krakatoa, also spelled Krakatau, is a caldera located in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung. The caldera is part of a group of volcanic islands called the Krakatoa archipelago, which includes four islands. Two of these islands are named Lang and Verlaten.
In April 1815, Mount Tambora, a volcano on the island of Sumbawa in present-day Indonesia (then part of the Dutch East Indies), erupted in what is now considered the most powerful volcanic eruption ever recorded. This eruption had a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 7 and released between 37 and 45 cubic kilometers (8.9 to 10.8 cubic miles) of dense-rock equivalent material into the atmosphere. It was the most recent confirmed eruption with a VEI of 7.