Welcome back everyone to the Great Dyings, a five-part video series on the five mass extinctions. Last time we explored the most deadly extinction event in the history of life: the Permian-Triassic mass extinction that ended the Paleozoic era and began the Mesozoic era with the Triassic period. Today, we will explore the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction, which ended the Triassic on the Triassic-Jurassic border. While it is a relatively unknown extinction, the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction is incredibly significant since it paved the way for the age of the dinosaurs.

Around 201 million years ago at the end of the Triassic when the rise of a new lineage of animals would mark the beginning of over 130 million years of peace and prosperity. A world untouched by climate change, tectonic processes, and extinctions which was allowed to prosper under the rule of some of the most powerful and well-known prehistoric beasts ever known… the Dinosaurs. But if there's one thing that we all know about good things, it's that they are never meant to last. 66 million years ago at the end of the Mesozoic, a cataclysmic event would change the world forever, ending this age of peace and the age of the non-avian dinosaurs…

445 million years ago, the first mass extinction froze and suffocated the inhabitants of the Ordovician globe.

Approximately 375 million years ago, a mysterious extinction began which would rock the Devonian earth to it's core.

Despite life's many trials, it has always managed to pull through. But there was one time when it almost didn't. 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian period, life came the closest it ever has to being wiped out completely. This is the story of the true Great Dying.