![]() ![]() The Asteroid Impact That Doomed the Dinosaurs Also Spawned a Mega-Tsunami Asteroid that killed the dinosaurs: Likely origin and what we know about the famous space rock Just like the strike of the Chicxulub impactor is proposed to have done, this could have had far-reaching global effects and could have filled the atmosphere of Earth with sunlight-blocking dust and toxic fumes, choking the dinosaurs and other Cretaceous period species. During these eruptions, massive amounts of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere killing 90% of all species and causing an environmental catastrophe.Įvidence of this violent and destructive volcanic activity is recorded in the Siberian Trap - a large region of volcanic rock around the size of Australia.Īround the time of the Cretaceous period mass extinction, the Indian subcontinent was rocked by volcanic eruptions that created the Deccan plateau - 7,000 feet (2,000 meters) of flat-lying basalt lava flows that cover an area of almost 190,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers) in west-central India. This process creates extensive regions of igneous rock in a step-like arrangement called 'large igneous provinces' that contain at least 100,000 cubic kilometers of magma.Įarth's history already shows evidence of how volcanic eruptions of this magnitude could trigger a mass extinction.Ī series of eruptions in Siberia around 252 million years ago triggered what is one of the most severe mass extinctions ever discovered - the Great Permian Extinction. Keller and his team found evidence of a type of volcanic fingerprint called a flood basalt corresponding with the Cretaceous period mass extinction and three of the other five mass extinctions recorded in Earth's geological record.įlood basalt is left behind when either a series of small volcanic eruptions or one titanic one rapidly flood vast areas of land with lava. The fossil record contains the fingerprint of five major mass extinctions, the most famous of which is the one which happened in the Cretaceous period - which lasted between 145.5 and 65.5 million years ago - that killed the dinosaurs along with around 76% of all Earth's species. ![]()
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