National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Volcanoes Wiped Out All Forests 250 Million Years Ago


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Trees damaged by the effects of toxic acid rain in the highly polluted area known as the "Black Triangle" are seen in northern Czechoslovakia in 1991.

A similar treeless landscape full of wood-eating fungi dominated Earth about 250 million years ago, when acid rain from a volcanic eruption killed off most life on Earth.

Photograph by Tom Stoddart/Getty Images