Around 539 million years ago, Earth witnessed the Cambrian explosion — a pivotal event when nearly all major animal groups suddenly emerged in the fossil record, reshaping the planet's biodiversity. However, this biological boom was interrupted by the Sinsk event around 513 million years ago. While scientists know this first mass extinction of the Phanerozoic — the starting age of visible life — caused widespread species loss, its full impact remained unclear due to a lack of soft-bodied fossils from the period immediately after the event.

Thousands of newly analyzed fossils discovered at a rock quarry in southern China and dating to 512 million years ago provide new details about what life was like for creatures that survived the mass extinction that capped off a pivotal period of rapid evolution and expansion known as the Cambrian explosion.

Scientists in China have unearthed a treasure trove of ancient fossils that is helping to rewrite the story of one of Earth's earliest and least-understood catastrophes: the first mass extinction of complex animal life.