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The relationship between dinosaurs and volcanoes has historically not always seemed so charming.
For decades, scientists have argued let there be volcanoes or a asteroid caused the sudden extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. was not until 2010 An international panel of experts has officially declared that the primary cause of the dino’s death was space rock, not giant explosions.
And now a research team presents most convincing evidence ever Major volcanic events are likely to have helped dinosaurs take over the planet, at least in another era. Their results were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
NS Triassic PeriodIt was a time of great ecological change, beginning roughly 250 million years ago. largest mass extinction event on record. While dinosaurs may have appeared during this period, they were different: we flock to movie theaters to see the skinnier, more reptilian-looking, less toothy blockbuster movies. But during this time period, dinosaurs diversified until they became such wondrous beasts as Tyrannosaurus rex or Triceratops that dominated ecosystems all over planet Earth until the end of the Cretaceous period.
To understand what was driving this dinosaur transformation, scientists looked at a two-million-year-old phase during the Triassic Period known as the Carnian Pluvial Period, or CPE. During this event, from 234 million years ago to 232 million years ago, the planet experienced an increase in global temperature, humidity, and precipitation—this climate is usually “mega monsoon”
The researchers analyzed sediment and plant fossil evidence from a lake in northern China and were able to map four intense stages of volcanic activity to changes during the Carnian Pluvial Period.
Previously, researchers hypothetical that the global carbon cycle changes during the event were the result of large volcanic eruptions originating from an igneous rock mass now located in western North America. The new study relates the timing of the episode to four different peaks in mercury. rooted indicator volcanic activity – precipitation leading to local changes in vegetation on land and in the lake, as well as carbon cycle shifts.
“We can often attribute volcanism to global warming, but our study is unusual because we’ve also linked it to periods of heavy rainfall,” he said. Jason Hilton, a paleobotanist at the University of Birmingham in England and co-author of a study. “With each pulse of volcanism, we see an increase in plants adapted to wet and aquatic environments.”
JingLu, a researcher at the China University of Mining and Technology and also a co-author of the study, added that these eruptions were “powerful enough to drive evolutionary processes during the Triassic.”
During the episode, plant species that could not adapt to the more humid environment disappeared, as did many animal species, from large terrestrial reptilian herbivores to small aquatic gastropods. Dr. “These changes have freed up the ecological space for other groups of organisms, such as dinosaurs, to thrive,” Hilton said.
Researchers believe that in addition to the dinosaur diversity, the Carnian Pluvial Division formed the foundations for today. ecosystems.
“During CPE, we’re starting to see this perfect mix of prehistoric beasts as well as modern-day mammals and reptiles,” he said. Emma Dunne, a researcher at the University of Birmingham, who was not involved in the study, but whose work focuses on the drivers of diversification of ancient tetrapods such as dinosaurs. “You had turtles, but also pterosaurs”
This new evidence has researchers thinking more about our rapidly changing climate.
“The scale of these eruptions dwarfs every volcanic eruption in human history,” he says. Sarah Greene, a study co-author and paleoclimatologist at the University of Birmingham. But the rate at which these eruptions release carbon dioxide is very small compared to today’s human carbon dioxide emissions.”
Dr. Dunne repeated this thought. “Those two million years have passed in the blink of an eye in geological time, so it’s a little scary to think that we’re changing the planet as humans at a faster rate,” he said. “Who knows what we will cause?”
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