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URI graduate student Reilly Hayes (left) and undergraduate Amanda Bednarick examine an outcrop for fossils at Petrified Forest National Park as part of their research. Credit: Amanda Bednarick
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A team of University of Rhode Island scientists and statisticians conducted a sophisticated quantitative analysis of a mass extinction that occurred 215 million years ago and found that the cause of the extinction was not an asteroid or climate change, as had previously been believed. Instead, the scientists concluded that the extinction did not occur suddenly or simultaneously, suggesting that the disappearance of a wide variety of species was not linked to any single catastrophic event.

Original Article