{"id":820071,"date":"2025-01-15T09:12:48","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T15:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/15\/volcanoes-ruled-out-fresh-evidence-uncovers-what-ended-the-dinosaur-era\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T09:12:48","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T15:12:48","slug":"volcanoes-ruled-out-fresh-evidence-uncovers-what-ended-the-dinosaur-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/15\/volcanoes-ruled-out-fresh-evidence-uncovers-what-ended-the-dinosaur-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Volcanoes Ruled Out: Fresh Evidence Uncovers What Ended the Dinosaur Era"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Asteroid<\/a>
Recent research shows that massive volcanic eruptions in India, though impactful to the climate, were not the direct cause of dinosaur extinction. Credit: SciTechDaily.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Volcanic activity in India altered the climate but didn\u2019t kill the dinosaurs; the Chicxulub meteorite did, by triggering an impact winter and massive environmental changes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Massive volcanic eruptions on the Indian subcontinent have long been suggested as a possible cause of the dinosaurs\u2019 extinction. These eruptions occurred shortly before Earth was struck by a meteorite 66 million years ago. For decades, scientists have debated the extent to which this volcanism affected Earth\u2019s climate and contributed to the dinosaurs\u2019 demise.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, researchers from Utrecht University and the University of Manchester have found that while the volcanic activity caused a temporary period of global cooling, its effects had faded thousands of years before the meteorite impact. Based on this evidence, the scientists conclude that the meteorite impact was the primary driver of the dinosaur extinction event.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dinosaur Extinction Theories<\/h4>\n

What caused the extinction of the dinosaurs \u2014 was it the Chicxulub meteorite, or did massive volcanic eruptions also play a role? These two ideas have fueled debate for decades and even appear in modern children\u2019s books about dinosaur history.<\/p>\n

The meteorite impact in the Gulf of Mexico, occurring roughly 66 million years ago, is widely recognized as the event that marked the end of the dinosaur era. However, scientists have long debated whether colossal volcanic eruptions in India, which happened before and after the meteorite strike, also contributed to the dinosaurs\u2019 demise. These eruptions released enormous amounts of CO\u2082, sulfur, and dust into the atmosphere, drastically altering Earth\u2019s climate \u2014 but in ways and on timescales different from those caused by a meteorite impact.<\/p>\n

Climate Impact of Volcanic Eruptions<\/h4>\n

A new publication in the prestigious scientific journal Science Advances<\/div>\n

<em>Science Advances<\/em> is a peer-reviewed scientific journal established by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It serves as an open-access platform featuring high-quality research across the entire spectrum of science and science-related disciplines. Launched in 2015, the journal aims to publish significant, innovative research that advances the frontiers of science and extends the reach of high-impact science to a global audience. "Science Advances" covers a broad range of topics including, but not limited to, biology, physics, chemistry, environmental science, and social sciences, making it a multidisciplinary publication.<\/div>\n

” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]” tabindex=”0″ role=”link”>Science Advances<\/span><\/em> by climate scientists from Utrecht University and the University of Manchester now provides compelling evidence that while the volcanic eruptions in India had a clear impact on global climate, they likely had little to no effect on the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

By analyzing fossil molecules in ancient peats from the United States of America, the scientific team reconstructed air temperatures for the time period covering both the volcanic eruptions and the meteorite impact. Using this method, the researchers show that a major volcanic eruption occurred about 30,000 years before the meteor impact, coinciding with at least a 5\u00b0 Celsius<\/div>\n

The Celsius scale, also known as the centigrade scale, is a temperature scale named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius. In the Celsius scale, 0 \u00b0C is the freezing point of water and 100 \u00b0C is the boiling point of water at 1 atm pressure.<\/div>\n

” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]” tabindex=”0″ role=”link”>Celsius<\/span> cooling of the climate. They also concluded that this cooling was likely the result of volcanic sulfur emissions blocking sunlight from reaching the Earth\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

Climate Recovery and Volcanic Influence<\/h4>\n

Importantly, the scientists discovered that by around 20.000 years before the meteorite impact, temperatures on Earth had already stabilized and had climbed back to similar temperatures before the volcanic eruptions started. This period of global warming was likely aided by volcanic CO2<\/sub> emissions, says Lauren O\u2019Connor at Utrecht University: \u201cThese volcanic eruptions and associated CO2<\/sub> and sulfur release would have had drastic consequences for life on earth. But these events happened millennia before the meteorite impact and probably played only a small part in the extinction of dinosaurs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruling Out Volcanic Effects<\/h4>\n

With the effects of volcanism practically ruled out, this would leave the Chicxulub meteorite impact as the primary cause of the dinosaur mass extinction. \u201cBy comparison, the impact from the asteroid unleashed a chain of disasters, including wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, and an \u2018impact winter\u2019 that blocked sunlight and devastated ecosystems. We believe the asteroid that ultimately delivered the fatal blow,\u201d says Rhodri Jerrett at the University of Manchester.<\/p>\n

The fossil peats that the researchers analyzed contain specific membrane-spanning molecules produced by bacteria. The structure of these molecules changes depending on the temperature of their environment. By analyzing the composition of these molecules preserved in ancient sediments, scientists are able to calculate past temperatures. O\u2019Connor adds: \u201cThis way, we were able to create a detailed \u2018temperature timeline\u2019 for the years leading up to the dinosaur extinction, which we can compare to the fossil record to understand the relative timing of events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reference: \u201cTerrestrial evidence for volcanogenic sulfate-driven cooling event ~30 kyr before the Cretaceous\u2013Paleogene mass extinction\u201d by Lauren K. O\u2019Connor, Rhodri M. Jerrett, Gregory D. Price, Tyler R. Lyson, Sabine K. Lengger, Francien Peterse and Bart E. van Dongen, 18 December 2024,\u00a0Science Advances<\/i>.
\nDOI: 10.1126\/sciadv.ado5478<\/a><\/p>\n

The researchers from Utrecht University, the University of Manchester, Plymouth University, and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, are now applying the same approach to reconstruct past climate at other critical periods in Earth\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\t\t\t Utrecht University
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Recent research shows that massive volcanic eruptions in India, though impactful to the climate, were not the direct cause of dinosaur extinction. Credit: SciTechDaily.com Volcanic activity in India altered the climate but didn\u2019t kill the dinosaurs; the Chicxulub meteorite did, by triggering an impact winter and massive environmental changes. Massive volcanic eruptions on the Indian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":820072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22910,48183],"tags":[105211,14680],"class_list":["post-820071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ruled","category-volcanoes","tag-ruled","tag-volcanoes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}