Most scientists agree that dinosaurs became extinct as a result of a catastrophic meteor strike 65 million years ago near the Yucatán Peninsula.
But now scientists are suggesting that another mass extinction event occurred about 200,000 years earlier: a volcanic eruption on the Deccan Plateau of India.
The eruption filled the atmosphere with aerosols fine particles suspended in greenhouse gases that led to warming and, eventually, the extinction of much of marine life, especially shelled invertebrates on the ocean floor.
This presents a more nuanced view of the extinction, said Thomas S. Tobin, a paleontologist at the University of Washington and the study’s lead author. It appears that both of these things happened in a short period of time.
Mr. Tobin and his colleagues report their findings in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
His team gathered fossils from Seymour Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula. The island has thick sediment deposits that were rich in fossils and provided the scientists with an abundance of detailed information; the fossils confirmed that in the period after the Deccan eruption, there was a mass extinction of marine animals.
We generated paleontological data that gives us the ranges of these species through time, he said. It allows us to determine when a species went extinct.
But now scientists are suggesting that another mass extinction event occurred about 200,000 years earlier: a volcanic eruption on the Deccan Plateau of India.
The eruption filled the atmosphere with aerosols fine particles suspended in greenhouse gases that led to warming and, eventually, the extinction of much of marine life, especially shelled invertebrates on the ocean floor.
This presents a more nuanced view of the extinction, said Thomas S. Tobin, a paleontologist at the University of Washington and the study’s lead author. It appears that both of these things happened in a short period of time.
Mr. Tobin and his colleagues report their findings in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
His team gathered fossils from Seymour Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula. The island has thick sediment deposits that were rich in fossils and provided the scientists with an abundance of detailed information; the fossils confirmed that in the period after the Deccan eruption, there was a mass extinction of marine animals.
We generated paleontological data that gives us the ranges of these species through time, he said. It allows us to determine when a species went extinct.
2012 The New York Times Company