Dinosaurs may not have become extinct just because of a meteor. This is what a new study published by the scientific journal states Science Advanceswho discovered that prehistoric reptiles could have been threatened even before the known catastrophe.
According to research led by Don Baker, professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill University in Canada, climate change triggered by massive volcanic eruptions may have set the stage for the extinction of the dinosaurs. The new line of study challenges the traditional narrative that only the meteor would have killed the animals.
The research team investigated volcanic eruptions coming from rocks called the “Deccan Traps” located in India. With the analysis, the group discovered that they would have damaged air quality by releasing gases that are toxic to survival, such as sulfur and fluorine.
“Our data suggests that volcanic sulfur degassing could have caused repeated, short-lived global drops in temperatures,” says Sara Callegaro, a geoscientist at the University of Oslo, and one of the study’s researchers.
“The volcanism of the Deccan Traps set the stage for a global biotic crisis, repeatedly deteriorating environmental conditions,” she adds.
Volcanism at the time would be recurrent, forming true “volcanic winters”, which would then have made it impossible for reptiles to live. According to the researchers, this instability would have made life difficult for all plants and animals and set the stage for the dinosaur extinction event.
Source: CNN Brasil
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