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It was the largest of the five major mass extinctions in Earth's history—well before the dinosaur-killer 66 million years ago.
这是地球有史以来5次大灭绝中最大的一次—当然，6600万年后还是发生了恐龙灭绝。
What's called the End Permian extinction, 252 million years ago, wiped out 96 percent of aquatic species and 70 percent of species on land.
它被称为二叠纪末大灭绝，2亿5千2百万年前96%的水生及70%的陆生生物全部惨遭灭绝。
Scientists have been trying to gauge the time frame of the extinction, in the hopes of determining its causes.
科学家们已尝试测出这次灭绝发生的时间范围，希望能找到其中原因。
Now researchers say it's the fastest mass extinction known.
现今研究人员们称这是迄今为止发生最快的灭绝事件。
Using new tools and models—including a fresh analysis of rock formations in China—the researchers determined that the extinction took only about 60,000 years.
通过使用新型工具和模型—包括中国在内的一项最先进的岩石形成分析—研究人员们确定了该灭绝事件发生持续时间只有6万年。
That's incredibly quick by geological standards, and is more than 10 times faster than previous estimates.
按地质学标准衡量的话这是十分快的速度，并且比之前任何估计的时间快了10倍以上。
The report is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
该报告已在《国家科学研究进展》杂志上发表。
Study author Samuel Bowring from M.I.T. says they can't yet compare the speed of the previous extinction to the extinction rates caused by human activities today.
此项研究的作者来自于麻省理工学院的萨穆埃尔博文称他们仍不能将之前灭绝事件发生的速度与人类现今的活动导致的物种灭亡速度相比较。
But, he says, their research is starting to help reveal how past environmental changes that influenced extinctions—such as levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—compare to the changes in those levels seen today.
但他还表示这项研究有助于揭示过去环境的变化如何影响物种的生存和灭亡—比如大气中的二氧化碳含量—对比今天我们看到的物种灭亡情况和以前发生的灭亡情况来研究环境影响起到的作用。
In the midst of what many call the sixth extinction.
如今我们正处于许多人称之为第6次灭绝活动的中期。
