Chixculub and volcanoes: dinosaurs die! (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, October 02, 2015, 13:59 (3339 days ago)

The idea that the giant asteroid was coupled with massive volcano eruptions has been around for several years now with a study in India that strongly supports the theory:-https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/10/01/scientists-suggest-a-new-earth-shaking-twist-on-the-demise-of-the-dinosaurs/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines-"The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, puts a twist on the consensus explanation of the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period. Scientists have long been confident that a mountain-sized object crashed into the planet, leaving traces even today of a vast crater at the tip of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.-"They've also known that massive volcanism in India was happening around the same time, spreading lava across a huge region known as the Deccan Traps. The coincidence of those two events initially hinted at causality, but subsequent dating of the Deccan Traps formations indicated that the flood of basaltic lava began long before the cataclysmic impact.-"His co-author Mark Richards, another Berkeley geologist, was lead author on a study published in April that said the Chicxulub impact, increased volcanic activity and mass extinction may have occurred “within less than about a hundred thousand years of each other.” The latest study reports new measurements that narrow that window to less than 50,000 years.-"Major gaps remain in the data, but these events "could have been exactly at the same time,” Richards said. That would then suggest causality and not random coincidence: The object from space could have boosted the rate of lava flows."-Comment: A huge area in India is the region of lava discussed and studied.