252 million years ago, 96% of all species died off. Now geologists know the extinction took only 60,000 years! It's one of the biggest mysteries of life on Earth...

It only wiped out 70% of the species on land.

But yeah, 60,000 years is ten times faster than previously thought.

After Permian Era came the dinosaurs aka the Fifth Extinction.

Our current era is called the Sixth Extinction -- this one likely to be caused by human activity:

http://www.npr.org/2014/02/12/275885377/in-the-worlds-sixth-extinction-are-humans-the-asteroid