--- title: 5 Major Extinctions—And One More We May Be Causing Right Now description: Earth’s worst mass murderers are oxygen, volcanoes…and us? canonical: https://time.com/3645387/mass-extinctions/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-23T18:43:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:06:31.803Z article:section: Health og:title: 5 Major Extinctions—And One More We May Be Causing Right Now og:description: Earth’s worst mass murderers are oxygen, volcanoes…and us? og:url: https://time.com/3645387/mass-extinctions/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dd5591bb719b335/6987709d3c1639f1c1450d61/fish-skeleton-dry-land.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4064 og:image:height: 2286 og:image:alt: fish-skeleton-dry-land og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 5 Major Extinctions—And One More We May Be Causing Right Now twitter:description: Earth’s worst mass murderers are oxygen, volcanoes…and us? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dd5591bb719b335/6987709d3c1639f1c1450d61/fish-skeleton-dry-land.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 5 Major Extinctions—And One More We May Be Causing Right Now > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=4cb5f711-d270-4424-8701-8198c4292e71&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) by [World Science Festival](https://time.com/author/world-science-festival/) ## World Science Festival Dec 23, 2014 6:43 PM UTC  Fish skeleton on dried land Fish skeleton on dried land Getty Images by [World Science Festival](https://time.com/author/world-science-festival/) ## World Science Festival Dec 23, 2014 6:43 PM UTC  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) * [_“The Five Worst Mass Extinctions,” Endangered Species International_](http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/overview.html) * [_“Big Five mass extinction events,” BBC_](http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/extinction%5Fevents) * [_“End-Triassic extinction,” Encyclopedia Britannica_](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1523109/end-Triassic-extinction) * [_“Table 1: The ‘Big Five’ mass extinction events,” Nature_](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/fig%5Ftab/nature09678%5FT1.html) [_This article originally appeared on World Science Festival_](http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/2014/12/earths-worst-mass-murderers-oxygen-volcanoes-and-humans/) ```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"}}]}] ```