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The Asteroid set off the Volcanos

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  • 02-10-2015 11:18pm
    #1
    _Tombstone_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,006 ✭✭✭


    What Killed the Dinosaurs Was More Devastating Than an Asteroid
    For nearly 40 years, paleontologists have argued over what really killed the dinosaurs. Was it an massive asteroid impact, or a spate of volcanic eruptions? Or what if a powerful impact ignited volcanoes, walloping Earth’s biosphere with a deadly 1-2 punch?

    That double-whammy scenario has been around for a while, but new evidence to support it may help settle the long-standing debate over the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) mass extinction. In a study which appears in this week’s Science, a UC Berkeley-led researcher team makes a compelling case that the impact at Chicxulub crater in Mexico triggered a period of large volcanic eruptions, turning Earth’s atmosphere into a dusty, noxious mess for the next 500,000 years.


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    #2
    JupiterKid
    Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 12,765 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    I see from that article that the Deccan Traps are antipodal to the Chixulub crater. But IMO that's even more evidence that the two events - the initial impact and the huge volcanism - are related.

    It's known in planetary science that huge impacts can cause earthquakes to travel all the away around a planet and converge on the antipodes. Mercury is a case in point. So the initial impact could well have triggered the Deccan Traps volcanism - because - not despite - it's antipodal location relative to the impact site.


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