Research favours excessive volcanism over meteorite as primary cause of dinosaur extinction

The conventional understanding is that a massive wayward rock from outer space smashed into the Yucatan Peninsula around 66 million years ago, causing the extinction of all dinosaurs. This is a story that is simple to understand, but may just be misleading our straight up wrong. What exactly caused the extinction of the dinosaurs is actually a contentious topic in science , one that is hotly debated.

The primary challenger to the meteorite impact theory is that excessive volcanism that formed the Deccan Traps in India was the primary driver for dinosaur extinction. This theory was first proposed in 1978, before the blockbuster theory on the meteorite impact, but the latter is the theory that became popular. In fact, dinosaur extinction is such a heated debate in science that it has been called the Shootout At The K/T Boundary and The Nastiest Feud in Science .

Recently, the evidence is mounting in support of excessive volcanism. An international team of researchers have now carefully examined the Deccan Traps, and used sophisticated analysis techniques to determine that excessive volcanism is more likely to be the primary driver for the dinosaur extinction than the meteorite impact. A paper describing the findings has been published in Science Advances.

The research suggests that the massive volcanic provinces that formed the Deccan Traps belched out over one million cubic kilometres of rock, along with excessive amounts of sulphur that caused a dip in global temperatures, that the dinosaurs could not survive. One of the authors of the paper, Don Baker says , “Our research demonstrates that climatic conditions were almost certainly unstable, with repeated volcanic winters that could have lasted decades, prior to the extinction of the dinosaurs. This instability would have made life difficult for all plants and animals and set the stage for the dinosaur extinction event.

Thus our work helps explain this significant extinction event that led to the rise of mammals and the evolution of our species. ” Artificial Intelligence favours volcanism theory over meteorite impact as cause for dinosaur extinction To settle the debate, another team of researchers tried a novel approach that removes the biases of human researchers who may have vested interests in supporting a particular narrative or theory, and let artificial intelligence come up with an answer. The scientists developed a modelling method to analyse the fossil record and pinpoint events that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

While most models so far work forwards the researchers came up with the innovative approach of working backwards. The approach is comparable to text prediction commonly used in smartphones. The AI was in favour of excessive volcanism being the primary cause, over the meteorite impact.

A paper describing the findings has been published in Science . First author of the paper Alex Cox says , “Part of our motivation was to evaluate this question without a predetermined hypothesis or bias. Most models move in a forward direction.

We adapted a carbon-cycle model to run the other way, using the effect to find the cause through statistics, giving it only the bare minimum of prior information as it worked toward a particular outcome. In the end, it doesn’t matter what we think or what we previously thought—the model shows us how we got to what we see in the geological record. ” The researchers have indicated that the same approach can be used to unravel and examine other events in the geological past of the planet.

Also Read | The world is vastly underprepared for next massive volcano eruption Excessive volcanism has been associated with all the major mass extinction over the last 500 million years. The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event wiped out all the dinosaurs on Earth, with some birds, crocodilians and the ancestors of placental mammals surviving. There is plenty of evidence to indicate that the dinosaurs, at least the non-avian dinosaurs were in decline well before the mass extinction event , and the associated asteroid impact.

While previous research has characterised the K-Pg extinction event as at least a one-two punch, while the new research designates the meteorite impact as the final blow. Also Read | Study identifies double whammy that led to end-Triassic mass extinction event.