Earth's Great Extinctions

by Rachel Phillips, The Great Courses

Approximately 66 million years ago, an asteroid struck the Earth, triggering a chain of events that would end the reign of the dinosaurs and usher in the age of mammals. Despite its colossal scale, this incident was not the only event of its kind—in fact, it wasn’t even the first. Rather, it’s only the most recent mass extinction our planet has witnessed across its 4-billion-year lifespan. In the last 500 million years alone, the Earth has experienced five major extinction events, each of which dramatically altered the planet and left a trail of fascinating geological evidence for us to uncover.

In the six lectures of Earth’s Great Extinctions, geologist Rachel Phillips digs deep into these mass extinction events, known as the “Big Five,” utilizing the fossil record to explore what caused them, how life recovered after each one, and what they can teach us about modern climate change and extinctions. From the ice age of the Ordovician period to the “Great Dying” of the Permian extinction to the climate catastrophe that ended the dinosaurs, you’ll explore the many factors that led to these events and what they can tell us about Earth in both the past and the present.

There is a growing scientific consensus that we are in the early stages of a sixth mass extinction. While the changes the planet is undergoing are human-driven, the ultimate causes—global temperature change, sea-level change, desertification, and other impacts—are not so different from the mass extinctions of the past. Better understanding how and why these catastrophic events occurred is not just an exercise in exploring the past, but a crucial step in determining our own future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook

Audible Audio

Published April 23, 2026

Reviews

[Irena Pasvinter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike the good old college level courses produced by The Teaching Company/The Great Courses in the past, these short Audible Originals often sound like a podcast alternative for listeners with short attention span. Some of them might still be excellent (for example, Who Was Jane Austen? Sorting Fact from Fiction or Medical Mysteries Across History) but more often than not they are too short, too basic and too hurried to make for a truly enjoyable and memorable listen, especially those that are only 3-hours-long or less.

For me, this was also the case of Earth's Great Extinctions -- interesting information, rushed through six 30-minute podcast-like lectures, one for each great extinction, with the supposedly upcoming six one for dessert.



Phanerozoic mass extinctions with evidence of increased microbial abundances. From the study "Lethal microbial blooms delayed freshwater ecosystem recovery following the end-Permian extinction".
(Image credit: Authors of the study: Chris Mays, Stephen McLoughlin, Tracy D. Frank, Christopher R. Fielding, Sam M. Slater & Vivi Vajda, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.)

[Koleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve really enjoyed the Great Courses on Audible. They use a podcast-like format to take dives into specific topics. What I like about this series is that they’re less fluff, more research-based, and very structured, unlike most podcasts. (Most of the Great Courses are free for Audible members.)

Earth’s Great Extinctions was a fun listen. It was really neat learning about the geo-climatology field and how they use rocks and fossils to track hundreds of millions of years of Earth’s history.

A somewhat joking trigger warning: this book talks about climate change.

This series of lectures takes you through the 5 great extinctions in Earth’s “recent” history. It’s wild to hear how these great extinctions have wiped out 75+ percent of Earth’s species. Life then had to evolve and change.

The author concludes with a 6th lecture talking about our current climate crisis and the imminent extinction it can bring. Luckily, after some doom and gloom, the author concludes with ways humans can correct their negative impact on the world and potentially reverse or delay another great extinction.

[Hunter Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

4-4.5 stars rounded up because I really enjoyed this lecture series. Frankly it is too short and rushed and I found myself pausing and looking things up. I think the Great Courses are trying to make these bite sized lecture series even when it demands a larger format. Also, this would have been infinitely better as a streaming/visual lecture series-again I had to stop and look a ton up. Still, I love the lecturer's voice and cadence and the subject matter is acutely important. I get the visual feeling of the billionaires who run the world pushing into the quicksand of destruction all in the name of more money for their insatiable souls and there is not much us peons can do about it.

[Paul Little · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fast survey. Too fast, where we brush by undefined terms and then spend more time selling us on the 6th great extinction.

I don’t mind the narrative, but there’s just not enough detail. We throw around terms like the reader is expected to know them and we don’t really understand how each species is important or why the extinction is important.

[DinoNat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to be friends with Rachel Phillips!
She embodies scientific communication so well and she does a great job explaining and breaking down some of the complex conditions that led up to extinction events.

[Marie Conrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a little technical, even for an engineer but it is also compelling.

[Timothy Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little summary of the five (six) great extinctions. If you know much about earth's history there isn't a lot new here but I enjoy how the information was framed.

[Amy Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a series of 6 lectures that I thought was fascinating.