What caused the mass extinction A volcanic eruption

Journal Article · Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1990 · Scientific American; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1090-85· OSTI ID:5446819

Courtillot, V E ^[1]

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1. Institute of Physics of the Earth, Paris (France)

The authors proposes that dust, carbon dioxide and other emissions from an episode of enormous volcanism that formed the basaltic Deccan Traps in India produced the climate changes that led to the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period. The iridium could, he says, just as easily have risen from the earth's mantle. The sheer size of the Deccan Traps suggests that their formation must have been an important event in the earth's history. An important, unresolved question was whether the data and duration of Deccan volcanism are compatible with the age and thickness of the KT boundary. Until recently the lava samples from the Deccan Traps were thought to range in age from 80 to 30 million years (estimated by measuring the decay of the radioactive isotope potassium 40 in rocks). The author presents data suggesting volcanism could not have lasted much more than one million years and was roughly simultaneous with the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period.

• OSTI ID: 5446819
• Journal Information: Scientific American; (United States), Vol. 263:4; ISSN 0036-8733
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
CRETACEOUS PERIOD
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
INDIA
VOLCANIC REGIONS
TERTIARY PERIOD
AGE ESTIMATION
SIZE
ANIMALS
BIOLOGICAL EXTINCTION
CARBON DIOXIDE
DUSTS
EARTH MANTLE
EMISSION
GEOLOGIC FORMATIONS
GEOLOGIC MODELS
IRIDIUM
LAYERS
SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
TIME DEPENDENCE
VOLCANISM
ASIA
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON OXIDES
CENOZOIC ERA
CHALCOGENIDES
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
ELEMENTS
GEOLOGIC AGES
MESOZOIC ERA
METALS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PLATINUM METALS
ROCKS
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
580000* - Geosciences