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Ancient volcanic activity in the <keyword id="1358643" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="deccan-traps" source="Orion">Deccan Traps</keyword> of West-Central <keyword id="3658" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword> is thought to have played a crucial role in the extinction of dinosaurs, according to recent research. The expansive plateau, formed by molten lava, contributed to global climate cooling around 65 million years ago. These volcanic eruptions released toxic gases into the atmosphere, causing a phenomenon known as volcanic winter, which plunged the <keyword id="6359982" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="earth" source="Orion">Earth</keyword> into darkness and cold.<br /><br />The Deccan Traps are a series of lava flows that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period, spanning 145 million to 66 million years ago. Covering an area of about 1.5 million square kilometres near India's Western Ghats, roughly half the size of modern India, these volcanic eruptions released large amounts of sulphur and fluorine into the atmosphere, further cooling the Earth's climate and blocking out sunlight. This hindered plant growth, leading to starvation among many animals.<br /><br />This study challenges the commonly held belief that the <keyword id="244916" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="chicxulub" source="Orion">Chicxulub</keyword> <keyword id="6549794" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="asteroid" source="Orion">asteroid</keyword> impact was the primary cause of <keyword id="48645" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="dinosaur" source="Orion">dinosaur</keyword> extinction, suggesting that Deccan volcanism might have exacerbated the die-offs. The research, indicating the impact of ancient <keyword id="6361617" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword> on the transition from the Cretaceous to the <keyword id="7601674" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="paleogene" source="Orion">Paleogene</keyword> period, emphasizes the profound consequences of even minor shifts in global temperatures.<br /><br />“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,” explains Don Baker, co-author of the study. “This instability would have made life difficult for all plants and animals and set the stage for the dinosaur extinction event.”<br /><br />The research findings have been published in <em>Scientific Advances</em> and can be accessed <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg8284" data-type="tilCustomLink">here</a>.<br />

One of India's ancient geological features might have helped kill off the dinosaurs millions of years ago!

<ul><li>New evidence has been found the support the theory that a series of volcanic eruptions in the Deccan Traps might have triggered Earth’s mass extinction 66 million years ago.</li><li>Volcanoes, like the Deccan Traps, are the largest source of mercury in the atmosphere.</li><li>Fossils find that at the time of the eruptions — tens of thousands of years before the <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword> impact — had a profound and long-lasting impact on the world.</li></ul>Theories around how the dinosaurs met their untimely end aren’t restricted to an earth-killing asteroid. New evidence says has found that massive volcanic eruptions in India might have <a href="https://news.umich.edu/two-in-one-fossil-shells-reveal-both-global-mercury-contamination-and-warming-when-dinosaurs-perished/">contaminated the atmosphere</a> with mercury long before any asteroid even flew close.<br /><br />These eruptions began <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/aaft-tse021919.php">tens of thousands</a> of years before the asteroid impact. They form what is now known as the Deccan Traps in southwestern India. The lava flowing from them covered nearly 1.5 million kilometres — approximately half the size of the peninsula.<br /><br /><br />
  
  <div type="image" title="deccantraps" msid="72832164" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Location of Deccan Traps on the Indian peninsular continent&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>





<br />Marine mossulk shell fossils from 66 million years ago found by the <a href="https://news.umich.edu/two-in-one-fossil-shells-reveal-both-global-mercury-contamination-and-warming-when-dinosaurs-perished/">University of Michigan</a> indicate that the eruption had a ‘profound, long-lasting and global’ impact on the world — enough to light the match of mass extinction.<br /><br />"For the first time, we can provide insights into the distinct climatic and environmental impacts of Deccan Traps volcanism by analysing a single material," said Kyle Meyer, lead author of the study.<br /><br /><strong>How can volcanoes set off mass extinctions? <br /></strong><br />Volcanoes are the largest source of mercury in the atmosphere — a toxic trace metal that poses a grave threat to human health, and wildlife in general — in addition to the substantial amount of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide they spew.<br /><br />
  
  <div type="image" title="deccantraps4" msid="72832318" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Sulphur dioxide fumes from an active volcano&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>





<br /><br />So, theoretically, when the Deccan Traps erupted, they filled the atmosphere with a host of lethal gases. The sulfur fumes were enough to turn the oceans to acid and kill three-quarters of the Earth’s population.<br /><br />And, new fossils found by researchers, indicates that to be true. The shells act as pre-historic record of temperature and mercury. <br /><br />And, they signal two things. There was an abrupt ocean warming at the time and, the mercury concentration in the atmosphere was elevated. It was so high that it matched levels of ‘significant modern industrial mercury contamination’.<br /><br /><strong>Studying the shells<br /></strong><br />Before researchers fold marine mollusk shell fossils from 66 million years ago, records of environmental mercury have largely been based on marine sediments. But, they have never been able to establish changes in the mercury levels as a response to changes in the climate.<br /><br />This is the first time that the indicator for both events has been found in the same specimen.<br /><br />The new fossils gave them an opportunity to assemble the first-ever deep-time record of mercury preserved in fossilized remains, while also determining marine temperature using a technique called carbonate clumped isotope paleothermometry.<br /><br />According to their results, an abrupt global warming event took place 250 thousand years before the dinosaur-ending <keyword id="7976329" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="asteroid-hit-earth">asteroid hit Earth</keyword>. Other studies have found that volcanic activity during that same time period was so intense that it created a carpet of lava 100 feet thick. <br /><br />The Deccan Trap eruptions were also what reportedly broke up the <keyword id="26341" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="gondwana">Gondwana</keyword> supercontinent and brought the western Indian Ocean into existence.<br /><br /><strong>See also:</strong><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/mass-extinction-bigger-than-dinosaur-asteroid-may-have-occurred-2-billion-years-ago/articleshow/70902923.cms">Dinosaurs dying off might not have be been the biggest mass extinction on Earth</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/climate-change-causes-australian-mammal-to-go-extinct/articleshow/68081948.cms">Climate change claims its first casualty in world's largest coral reef system</a><br /><br /><br />

Not an asteroid but massive volcanic eruptions in India might have set off mass extinction 66 million years ago

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/asteroid-earth-elements-this-image-furnished-155504771">Shutterstock/NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">An illustration of comets and asteroids striking planet Earth.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Scientists have long known that an asteroid slammed in Earth and created the Chicxulub Crater, which contributed to the dinosaurs' extinction 66 million years ago.</strong></li><li><strong>Scientists have struggled to determine whether the volcanic activity or the global cooling that resulted from the asteroid impact were more responsible for the extinction event.</strong></li><li><strong>Now a study has revealed that the crash also triggered massive volcanic activity in the world's oceans, further changing the picture of how the dinosaurs went extinct.</strong></li></ul><p><br />When <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chicxulub-asteroid-strike-cretaceous-paleogene-extinction-2017-11">an asteroid hit Earth some 66 million years ago</a>, it triggered devastation around the world.</p><p>There were at least three nearly simultaneous events involved in the global catastrophe that ended what we now call the Mesozoic era. An <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chicxulub-asteroid-more-sulfur-rapid-climate-cooling-2017-11">asteroid between 10 and 15 kilometers in diameter slammed</a> into Earth, creating the Chicxulub Crater near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The Deccan Traps, a massive volcanic province in what's now India, erupted, spewing lava and smoke that filled the skies. And 75% of Earth's plant and animal life went extinct, which scientists have linked to those other disasters that filled the skies with soot and smoke and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chicxulub-asteroid-strike-cretaceous-paleogene-extinction-2017-11">transformed the world's climate</a>.</p><p>But when it comes to world-shaking devastation, that wasn't all that was going on at the time, scientists report in a <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/2/eaao2994.full">study recently published</a> in the journal <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> Advances.</p><p>The asteroid also appears to have sent ripples through Earth's tectonic plates, which spread out through the oceans and caused tens of thousands of miles of underwater volcanic ridges to spew magma. The authors <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-bad-news-for-dinosaurs-chicxulub-meteorite-impact-triggered-global-volcanic-eruptions-on-the-ocean-floor-91053">describe those eruptions as</a> "on par with the largest eruptive events in Earth's 4.5-billion-year history, including the Deccan Traps."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shannon Stapleton/Reuters</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Looking for past volcanic activity</h2><p>Part of the debate about what really killed the dinosaurs has to do with the interplay between the asteroid impact and the Deccan Traps eruptions. The most up-to-date understanding suggests the Deccan Traps eruptions began before the Chicxulub impact. But they also seem to have gotten much more active in the time after the asteroid hit.</p><p>Yet if the asteroid was able to influence volcanic activity on the other side of the globe, it should have affected volcanoes elsewhere, too. That's why the authors of this study decided to trace what was happening in the oceans.</p><p>To uncover evidence of underwater volcanic activity, the researchers used existing data to examine how the seafloor's structure changed over the past 100 million years.</p><p>They were able to find evidence of massive transformations in the amount of rock on the seafloor, a change caused by volcanic activity. Eruptions left 650-foot-high piles of rock in the Indian and Pacific oceans, the study authors <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-bad-news-for-dinosaurs-chicxulub-meteorite-impact-triggered-global-volcanic-eruptions-on-the-ocean-floor-91053">write in The Conversation</a>. They dated those eruptions to within a million years of the impact, close enough to link the events.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>iStock</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>A better picture of the dinosaur apocalypse</h2><p>These new findings give us a better timeline of what happened to trigger the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.</p><p>Although the Deccan Traps were probably erupting for 250,000 years before the Chicxulub asteroid slammed into the planet, the impact transformed the world. The atmosphere filled with soot, causing global cooling that was strong and sudden enough to have played a strong role in the end of the dinosaurs.</p><p>At the same time, the asteroid shook the world and led to earthquakes that released even more magma. The already flowing Deccan Traps erupted in a whole new way, essentially covering the Indian subcontinent with lava and further filling the skies with particles that reflected the sun's heat back into space and cooled the planet. An eruption that was equally strong occurred underwater.</p><p>Small mammals and flying dinosaurs - which we now know as birds - survived, but the majority of plant and animal life did not.</p><p>We still don't know exactly which components of these global catastrophes were most responsible for the extinctions, or whether other volcanic systems elsewhere in the world were triggered, too.</p><p>"What is clear is that this new research points to global-scale connections between catastrophes, a good reminder that events happening on the other side of the planet can have effects felt everywhere," the <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-bad-news-for-dinosaurs-chicxulub-meteorite-impact-triggered-global-volcanic-eruptions-on-the-ocean-floor-91053">study authors write</a>.</p><p>What is very clear is that this was an unpleasant time to be anywhere on Earth.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-discover-99-million-year-old-dinosaur-tail-feathers-2016-12">Scientists uncovered a bloody, feathered dinosaur tail that got stuck in tree sap 99 million years ago</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs triggered devastating underwater eruptions - which changes how we understand their extinction

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p><p class="caption">A stowaway rat caused chaos on the domestic Air India flight.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>An Air India flight flying from Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam was delayed for 12 hours after a rat was spotted in the cabin. </li><li>Flight AI-952 was due to depart at 06:10 a.m. on Sunday but after the rat was spotted passengers were told to disembark the plane- which did not leave until later in the day at 5.30 p.m. <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/rat-on-board-delays-ai-flight-by-close-to-12-hours/articleshow/72014075.cms">according to the Times of India.</a></li><li>The passengers were told to disembark the plane and pest control proceeded to remove the rat and fumigate the plane before the airline let people back on. </li><li>According to aviation news site <a href="https://simpleflying.com/air-india-rat-delay/">Simple Flying,</a> the presence of rats on flights is a relatively common reason for delays, due to the fear that they may chew and destroy wires on the plane. </li></ul><p>A domestic flight in India was delayed for 12 hours after a rat was spotted in the cabin as the flight was about to take off. </p><p>Passengers on Air India flight AI-952 from Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam were on due to leave at 6:10 a.m. on Sunday, but were delayed when the rat was spotted prior to the plane taking off.</p><p>Air India officials <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/rat-on-board-delays-ai-flight-by-close-to-12-hours/articleshow/72014075.cms">confirmed to the Times of India</a> that the plane was delayed as a result of there being a rat on board. </p><p>The hour-long flight's departure from Rajiv Gandhi International was ultimately delayed until 5:30 p.m, according to The Times of India, almost 12 hours after its scheduled departure.</p><p>The flight's delay was more than 10 times longer than the flight itself, which covered around 315 miles from the central city of Hyderabad, to Visakhapatnam, which is on India's east coast.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Google Maps</span></p><p class="caption">A map showing</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Business Insider was unable to reach Air India for comment by phone or email Wednesday afternoon.</p><p>The passengers were asked to disembark the plane after the rodent was spotted and pest control were called in to remove the rat, <a href="https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/121119/hyderabad-rat-delays-air-india-flight-by-12-hours.html">according to the Deccan Chronicle.</a></p><p>"The rat was located and trapped. Then the aircraft was fumigated," a representative from Air India told the Deccan Chronicle. </p><p>According to aviation news site <a href="https://simpleflying.com/air-india-rat-delay/">Simple Flying,</a> the presence of rats on flights is a relatively common reason for delays, due to the fear that they may chew and destroy wires on the plane. </p><p>Similar incidents have occurred on planes from <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/alaska-airlines-flight-grounded-rat-cockpit-cancelled-plane-oakland-airport-portland-a8140216.html">Alaska Airlines</a>, <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/rats-plane-holidaymakers-left-gutted-6773284">Air Berlin</a> and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7329758/Rat-on-a-plane-200-passengers-evacuated-after-rodent-found-on-transatlantic-flight.html">Air Canada.</a></p><p>The rat incident is the second time in recent months that Air India has faced delays caused by animals. In September, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/air-india-flight-delayed-bees-cockpit-window-2019-9?r=US&amp;IR=T">an Air India flight was delayed by two hours after a swarm of bees settled on the cockpit window</a>, obscuring pilots' vision and attacking staff who tried to remove them.</p><p>The flight, from Kolkata in India's north east, to Agartala, on the border with Bangladesh, had 136 passengers onboard, including the Bangladeshi information minister.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-top-concept-cars-decade-2010s-2019-11">The 9 most mind-blowing concept cars of the past decade</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

An Air India flight was delayed nearly 12 hours after a stowaway rat was spotted in the cabin

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>iStock</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Approximately 66 million years ago, a massive asteroid or comet smashed into the Earth near what we now think of as the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. On the other side of the world, in India, at a place called the Deccan Traps, a period of intense volcanic eruption began - one that would last tens of thousands of years.</p><p>These catastrophic and powerful events are often considered the primary causes of the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period that wiped out most of the dinosaurs along with 75% of life on the globe.</p><p>But brand-new research reveals another factor that may have played a role in ending the era of the most massive creatures to ever walk the surface of the planet. It seems dinosaur eggs took a particularly long time to hatch. That means that when they had to compete for sparse resources in a post-extinction event world with the more efficient amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals that made it through that era into the next one, dinosaurs may have lost out.</p><p>Compared to reptiles, birds lay few eggs, and they are particularly large. This could hamper their competitiveness, since it exposes them to destructive risks. But bird eggs hatch about twice as fast as reptiles (their behavior keeps eggs warm and stable), which researchers think helps enough survive to hatch. Dinosaurs still exist in the form of birds - avian dinosaurs - and so researchers thought that the eggs of the non-avian varieties would still hatch at about the same fast rate as bird eggs do. After all, from what we can tell, non-avian dinosaur and bird eggs have similar structures and birds are the only remaining dinosaurs for us to base these hypotheses on.</p><p>But the new study, published January 2 <a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1613716114">in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>, reports that dinosaur eggs took far longer to hatch. For one species studied, researchers estimate that a comparable bird egg would take between 40 and 82 days to hatch. The dinosaur egg, it seems, would have incubated between 83 and 171 days before it was ready, more like a reptile.</p><p>And that changes a lot of what we know about dinosaurs.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Protoceratops.jpg">AntoninJury/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>It's all about the teeth</h2><p>The amount of time it takes for young to be born has a significant impact on how a species lives. It can define mating season, migratory behavior, and other characteristics.</p><p>Dinosaurs had large eggs and, in general, adults expended more energy than comparably sized reptiles or amphibians, putting a limit on their competitiveness.</p><p>By studying the growth of embryonic teeth in other species, researchers have been able to determine how long it took for the infants of those species to develop. So the team behind this study, consisting of researchers from Florida State, the University of Calgary, and the American Museum of Natural History, decided to try to calculate embryonic tooth growth in two dinosaur species, <em>Hypacrosaurus stebingeri</em> (a sort of "duck-billed" dinosaur) and <em>Protoceratops andrewsi</em> (a less-famous relative of the <em>Triceratops).</em></p><p>The researchers saw that a certain measure that can be used to calculate embryonic tooth development in both human and crocodilian species exists in dinosaur species as well. So they evaluated fossil teeth from the above species.</p><p>Their calculations showed that the <em>Protoceratops</em> egg would have taken more than twice as long to incubate as a comparable bird egg, and would have been just a bit quicker to develop than a similar reptile. The <em>Hypacrosaurus </em>egg would have incubated even longer, needing more time than a similar reptile.</p><p>As the study authors write, this means that many hypotheses of dinosaur behavior may need to be re-evaluated. It was thought that perhaps these species made long migrations back and forth from the Arctic between seasons, but long egg incubation periods may have made this impossible. And while these new findings are just based on evaluations of fossils from two species of dinosaur, the authors say they think these long incubation periods would most likely be found in all toothed dinosaurs - though further research could always change that conclusion.</p><p>The other big effect this may have had is on the extinction of these creatures. We already believe dinosaurs expended more energy and needed more resources than reptiles or amphibians. They took a long time to mature, unlike many mammals and birds. When the resources of the world were devastated by a changed climate after the asteroid struck and during the period of volcanic activity, it became hard for any large species to survive. Slow hatching rates would have been just another blow to the non-avian dinosaurs. And that may help further explain why none made it through that time.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dentist-whitening-toothpaste-best-way-whiten-teeth-2016-12">A dentist reveals the most effective way to whiten your teeth</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="F3Z2s1NTE6WzgHfezARPMLaFtOM437VV" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "deccan traps" and got 5 results

One of India's ancient geological features might have helped kill off the dinosaurs millions of years ago!

Ankush Banerjee

Not an asteroid but massive volcanic eruptions in India might have set off mass extinction 66 million years ago

Prabhjote Gill

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs triggered devastating underwater eruptions - which changes how we understand their extinction

Kevin Loria

An Air India flight was delayed nearly 12 hours after a stowaway rat was spotted in the cabin

Sahar Esfandiari

A surprising factor in the extinction of the dinosaurs may have been how long their eggs took to hatch

Kevin Loria

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