During the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, which occurred on the planet about 66 million years ago, three quarters of species of living creatures, including dinosaurs, died. Some scientists believe that the fall of an asteroid on the territory of the modern Yucatan Peninsula, which formed the Chicxulub crater, led to extinction. As a result of the collision of a celestial body with the Earth, a large amount of dust got into the atmosphere through which the sun's rays could not penetrate. This led to a decrease in air temperature and the mass death of vegetation on the planet, and, consequently, the ancient dinosaurs.
Other researchers have attributed the extinction of dinosaurs with increased volcanic activity. According to this version, after numerous eruptions, a large amount of carbon dioxide was released into the Earth’s atmosphere, which led to the greenhouse effect.
At the end of the Cretaceous period, a huge outpouring of magma occurred on the territory of Hindustan, as a result of which Dean traps were formed (basalt covers on the Deccan Plateau in India. - RT ). American scientists conducted new studies, dating the frozen lava flows of the Deccan traps. Geochemists from the University of California used the argon-argon method of dating, and their colleagues from Princeton University turned to the more common uranium-lead method.
Research results showed that volcanic eruptions in Indostan began 400 thousand years before the disappearance of dinosaurs and lasted for about 1 million years.
Experts from Princeton University came to the conclusion that volcanic eruptions took place in four stages, and the second, the most intense, began tens of thousands of years before the fall of the Chiksuli asteroid.
At the same time, scientists from the University of California found that most of the frozen lava covered the territory of the Deccan traps after the mass extinction of dinosaurs. The experts also concluded that after the fall of the asteroid, the intensity of volcanic eruptions increased.
The researchers combined the data and came to the conclusion that large-scale volcanic eruptions, which began long before the astroid fell to Earth, aggravated the results of the collision of celestial bodies.
“In all likelihood, the eruption of the Dekanski Traps weakened ecosystems at the end of the Cretaceous and made them susceptible to rapid environmental changes caused by the fall of the Chikssuli meteorite,” said study author Courtney Sprane of the University of California.
Scientists believe that they were able to get closer to solving the mystery of the extinction of dinosaurs.
"I think that in the future we will get a much clearer picture of what happened," Sprane summed up.