Its detection at unearthly levels in rocks 65 million years old was the first evidence in the case for an asteroid causing the mass extinction and global environmental mayhem that ended the Cretaceous period and began the Tertiary period.

BBC: Leaving our mark: Fossils of the future

In truth, agreement on the cause of the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous (when not only the dinosaurs, but also a host of other species died) has never been as cut and dried among palaeontologists as it may have appeared to the public.

ECONOMIST: Mass extinctions

ABSTRACT:A REPORTER AT LARGE about the sixth mass extinction.

NEWYORKER: The Sixth Extinction?

One of the puzzles of mass extinction is why, at certain junctures, the resourcefulness of life seems to falter.

NEWYORKER: The Sixth Extinction?

But we are the only species to have defined a geological period by our activity something usually performed by major glaciations, mass extinction and the colossal impact of objects from outer space, like the one that defines the upper boundary of the Cretaceous.

FORBES: On The Anthropocene Age

But, for those of a nervous disposition, the tying of an ancient greenhouse warming to an ancient mass extinction might suggest lessons for the future.

ECONOMIST: A geological burp may have led to the dinosaurs�� domination

The forecast comes from an analysis by US researchers of the way ecosystems recover from mass extinction.

BBC: Intel follows speedy chip debut

It suggests that the Internet Age is now about to end, with a mass extinction of dot-coms as sweeping and complete as the one of reptiles at the end of the Jurassic.

FORBES: Opportunity Knocking