Nanjing University research suggests mass extinctions were more gradual

Research conducted by Nanjing University, utilizing an artificial intelligence model named OneStrata, suggests that three of the five major mass extinctions in Earth's history occurred much more gradually than previously believed by the scientific community.

By analyzing nearly four million marine fossils, the study addresses the Signor-Lipps effect—a systematic bias where the last recorded fossil of a species does not necessarily mark its actual extinction, often making events appear more abrupt than they were. The AI model allowed researchers to process vast amounts of stratigraphic data, including chemical composition and geological periods, to identify complex patterns and environmental shifts that traditional manual analysis could not achieve.

The findings, which have been noted in Nature, provide new insights into how ancient ecosystems evolved and how global geological phenomena correlated with mass extinction events.