--- description: Earth’s worst mass murderers are oxygen, volcanoes…and us? title: 5 Major Extinctions—And One More We May Be Causing Right Now image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dd5591bb719b335/6987709d3c1639f1c1450d61/fish-skeleton-dry-land.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) ## Health Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [climate change](/tag/climate-change/) ## climate change Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # 5 Major Extinctions—And One More We May Be Causing Right Now by [World Science Festival](/author/world-science-festival/) ## World Science Festival Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 23, 2014 6:43 PM CUT  Fish skeleton on dried land Fish skeleton on dried landGetty Images by [World Science Festival](/author/world-science-festival/) ## World Science Festival Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 23, 2014 6:43 PM CUT  For everything on Earth, there has been a season: A time for continents to meet, a time for them to break apart, a time for warming and a time for cooling, a time for life to thrive and species to multiply—and a time for them to get obliterated by global catastrophes. Scientists generally recognize five major extinction events when, in very short order (on a geological timescale, anyway), much of life on Earth was utterly stomped into the fossil record. Here’s a look at the five major extinction events of epochs past, and a glimpse at the sixth one we might be causing right now.  World Science Festival _Sources:_ * [_“Late Devonian Mass Extinction,” Natural History Museum_](http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/dinosaurs-other-extinct-creatures/mass-extinctions/late-devonian-mass-extinction/index.html "undefined") * [_“The Five Worst Mass Extinctions,” Endangered Species International_](http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/overview.html "undefined") * [_“Big Five mass extinction events,” BBC_](http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/extinction%5Fevents "undefined") * [_“End-Triassic extinction,” Encyclopedia Britannica_](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1523109/end-Triassic-extinction "undefined") * [_“Table 1: The ‘Big Five’ mass extinction events,” Nature_](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/fig%5Ftab/nature09678%5FT1.html "undefined") [_This article originally appeared on World Science Festival_](http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/2014/12/earths-worst-mass-murderers-oxygen-volcanoes-and-humans/ "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3645387/mass-extinctions/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3645387/mass-extinctions/"},"headline":"5 Major Extinctions—And One More We May Be Causing Right Now","datePublished":"2014-12-23T18:43:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:06:31.803Z","description":"Earth’s worst mass murderers are oxygen, volcanoes…and us?","url":"https://time.com/3645387/mass-extinctions/","keywords":["climate change","Extinction"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dd5591bb719b335/6987709d3c1639f1c1450d61/fish-skeleton-dry-land.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"World Science Festival","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/world-science-festival/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dd5591bb719b335/6987709d3c1639f1c1450d61/fish-skeleton-dry-land.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"fish-skeleton-dry-land","caption":"fish-skeleton-dry-land","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/climate-change/","name":"climate change"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3645387/mass-extinctions/","name":"5 Major Extinctions—And One More We May Be Causing Right Now"}}]}] ```