One of the remaining mysteries surrounding these mass extinctions is how new creatures, some similar to the extinct ones and some very different, could have appeared soon after the catastrophes. Collision models demonstrate that life on earth would be unsupportable, at least for larger animals, for two to ten years. Such a small time window is far beyond the capacity of paleontologists to discern in looking back tens of millions of years. However, new species are evidenced as soon after the mass extinctions as can possibly be detected. To me the most obvious answer to this mystery of the rapid replacement of life would be the intervention of the Creator.
Many evolutionists already admit that there is no known natural cause for the origin of life.
In my most recent radio debates with well-known evolutionary biologists, not one would argue that point. The search for a natural explanation for fife's origin has come up empty handed. A natural-cause hypothesis called punctuated equilibria has been proposed. Originated by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, the concept is that species at low population levels and under extreme environmental stress will experience rapid mutational advance, advance so rapid and at such low population levels that no evidence of the stages of advance will show up in the fossil record. One of the best responses I have heard to this hypothesis came from a group of evolutionary biologists I met on one of my trips to Africa.