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    <h3>Understanding the Great Dying</h3><br />
    <p class="p1">While the extinction of the dinosaurs often captures public interest, an even more catastrophic event known as the "Great Dying" or the "End-Permian Extinction" occurred on our planet long before. Researchers have recently uncovered the mechanisms behind this disaster, which transpired around 250 million years ago, wiping out over 90% of Earth's species.</p><br />
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    <h4>The Volcanic Cataclysm</h4><br />
    <p class="p1">The primary catalyst for this mass extinction was a series of immense volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia, Russia, collectively referred to as the "Siberian flood basalts." Astonishingly, these eruptions persisted for nearly a million years.</p><br />
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    <p class="p3">Lead researcher Michael Broadley from the Centre for Petrographic and Geochemical Research in Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France, sheds light on what made this event particularly devastating:</p><br />
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    <p>“The magnitude of this extinction was so overwhelming that it has led scientists to question why the Siberian Flood Basalts were significantly more lethal than other comparable eruptions,” Broadley noted.</p><br />
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    <p>In fact, this extinction event had a wide-ranging impact, decimating around 70% of larger animals and eradicating 96% of marine life, alongside countless insect species. The loss of biodiversity was so severe that it took an additional 10 million years for ecosystems to fully recover.</p><br />
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    <p class="p5">So, what was the underlying cause? Geologists propose that the scale of the volcanic eruption was so great that it effectively shattered the Earth’s ozone layer at the time. Through an analysis of the lithosphere—the planet's rigid outer layer, which comprises the crust and upper mantle—researchers discovered significant amounts of chlorine, bromine, and iodine in the Siberian lithosphere prior to the eruptions. These halogen group elements are known to be extremely toxic when inhaled, often leading to death. Remarkably, these elements disappeared post-eruption.</p><br />
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    <p>“Our research indicates that the substantial reservoir of halogens present in the Siberian lithosphere was released into the atmosphere during the volcanic activity, resulting in the destruction of the ozone layer and facilitating the mass extinction,” Broadley elaborated.</p><br />
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    <p>Broadley conducted this pivotal research, also known as the "Permian-Triassic extinction," in collaboration with Lawrence (Larry) Taylor, the study’s co-author and a former director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Taylor, who had a remarkable 46-year career in science, passed away in September 2017 at the age of 79.</p><br />
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