250 million years ago there was a world wide extinction event where 96% of all marine species were exterminated. Most of this event is unknown. Only one in every ten species survived, and these formed the basis for the recovery of life in the subsequent time period, called the Triassic. A new fossil site – at Luoping in Yunnan Province – provides a new window on that recovery, and indicates that it took about 10 million years for a fully-functioning new ecosystem to develop. During that time window, the new ecosystem evolved and changed until it stabilized.