The Asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago appears to have caused huge amounts of magma to spew out of the bottom of the ocean, a new study of seafloor data finds.
For decades, researchers have pointed to a cataclysmic asteroid smashing into the planet as the reason the Dinosaurs, and many other species of life on Earth, were wiped out during what's formally known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event (named for the periods that came before and followed after it).
That impact, which scientists think left the roughly 110-mile-wide Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico, would have vaporized living things nearby and sent choking clouds of debris into the air, obscuring the sun.
But scientists have also pointed to another culprit: the Deccan Traps in present-day India, one of the largest volcanic provinces in the world, which just happened to be going gangbusters at the time of the extinction event.
"People still argue about which one was actually the primary driver of environmental changes that resulted in the death of dinosaurs," said senior author Leif Karlstrom, an earth scientist at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Researchers have also suggested that perhaps the two were connected — perhaps the asteroid Triggered Deccan Trap volcanism, producing a brutal one-two punch that ultimately knocked out roughly three-quarters of the Earth's plant and animal species.
Sure enough, the scientists found that at the time the asteroid hit the Earth, there was a sudden surge in the magma pouring out of these mid-ocean ridges, which put out on the order of a hundred thousand to a million cubic kilometers of volcanic material.
- Giant Space Rock That Wiped Out Dinosaurs May Have Sparked Volcanoes, TooSnopes.com
- Dinosaur-Killing Space Rock May Have Triggered Sea VolcanoesU.S. News & World Report
- 66 million-year-old asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs also triggered deadly ...International Business Times UK
- Dino-Killing Asteroid Caused Magma to Burst From the Ocean Floor, Say ScientistsGizmodo
- A one-two punch may have helped deck the dinosaursAroundtheO
- Seafloor data point to global volcanism after Chicxulub meteor strikePhys.Org
- The dinosaur-murdering asteroid maybe also triggered an underwater volcano ...The Verge
- More bad news for dinosaurs: Chicxulub meteorite impact triggered global ...The Conversation US
- Meteorite That Killed Dinosaurs Also Set off a Chain of Submarine VolcanoesInverse