Image Credit: Nicolle Rager / National Science Foundation.
Since 1980, scientists have believed a meteorite impact in the Yucatan caused a mass extinction of species, including the dinosaurs. But geologist Gerta Keller of Princeton disagrees.
Gerta Keller: This impact didn’t cause any species extinctions. According to 20 years of research by Keller and her team, this impact happened 300 thousand years after the dinosaurs disappeared. Keller believes that – instead of a space rock – volcanoes might have killed the dinosaurs.
Gerta Keller: Now we find that the other catastrophe, which is Deccan Volcanism, which has not had much attention paid to it, may be the real culprit.
She’s talking about volcanic eruptions on India’s Deccan plateau between 63 and 67 million years ago. The volcanoes spewed huge amounts of sulfur dioxide into the air.
Keller’s team studied geologic core samples from the area. With each subsequent volcanic flow, Keller said, less evidence of life appears within the cores.
Gerta Keller: We found the first evidence that one of the main phases of the Deccan eruptions was possibly related to or caused the mass extinction.
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Our thanks to:
Gerta Keller
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ
Good article. I have always been troubled by the fact that the extinctions started before the meteor hit. And this makes sense as chemicals in the air and water could have affected the dino’s egg shells, giving mammals an opening.
Dr. Dewey McLean was talking about the link between Deccan Trap volcanism and the extinction of the Dinosaurs in the hallways of the department of Geological Sciences at Virginia Tech in the early 80’s. He had a distinctive way of saying “dinsoaurs” that if you ever met him you would never forget. He knew that this theory wasn’t popular with everyone at the time. I do remember him giving a very interesting colloquium on this topic. VT was an exciting place to be a graduate student as there were so many clever people working on so many different topics in geology and they were more than happy to share and debate their science with you. You can find more information on the topic at this web site http://filebox.vt.edu/artsci/geology/mclean/Dinosaur_Volcano_Extinction/index.html
i nevr knew dat b4 .. i really thought it was coz ov d meteorite dat dinosaurs gone extinct ! wow ! dats really coool !
thanks you just helped me with my project !!!!!
Really nice Article. I myself have thought about this time and time again. Thanks!
ok i always know dat dino were endangered at one time but VOLCANOS!!!! reall??!!?!?!…..i just believe dat da weird meteros knocked dem out but wateva….geeze be realistic!!!
what was the tempture in witch dinosaures lived in?
i neda to nowe abte dinasores
Test
This is an interesting theory, along with others, but so far, Gerta Keller has been the professional in recent years to endorse this theory, seeing as she was the one who presented it. According to her reasearch, the main argument against the Yucatan impact is that it predates the dinosaur extinction, but only record of that(the extinction) is from dating dinosaur fossils, and 300,000 years is a short time in geological terms, and I doubt fossil dating is accurate enough to completely affirm the date of the final ‘extinction’. Remember extinction is a process, and not a single instanetaneous event, and a study of extinction does not exist, as it is a hard subject to study.
this is interesting infomation, but the only problem is if a series of volcanic eruptions occured to cause the KT extinction then the sulphur dioxide would be trapped in the atmosphere it would cause a massive global cooling. and turn earth into a snowball planet. but this theory can’t be true because if it did the a small layer of the planet would have snow particles in it. >.<'
joe kelsa ur mum stinks like sh!t
suk ur mum n ur ga boi frined n ur mum is a biatch