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Scientists say it is now more and more likely that an impact of asteroids or comets could have reignited huge volcanic eruptions in India 66 million years ago.
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Maybe it's not just the asteroid that killed most dinosaurs 66 million years ago: a new study reveals that volcanoes on the other side of the world may have played a role.

An asteroid has struck the Earth near present-day Mexico, triggering huge tsunamis and ashes that have obliterated the sun. This has led to a "nuclear winter" that has eliminated more than half of the world's animal and plant species.

Volcanoes – in what is now India – may have contributed to extinctions and new studies have identified the date and time of onset of these eruptions. This should give additional clues to the cause of extinction.

"To understand the role of volcanoes in mass extinction, we need to understand when the eruptions have occurred, how long they have occurred and how much volume has been released during which period", studied the author Courtney Sprain, geoscientist at the University of Liverpool, told Gizmodo.

Maybe it's not just the asteroid that killed most dinosaurs 66 million years ago: a new study reveals how volcanoes on the other side of the world have also played a role (Photo11: Elenarts, Getty Images / iStockphoto)

Sprain and other researchers traveled to India to study these ancient volcanic eruptions, observing huge mounds of hardened lava known as "Deccan traps."

According to the University of California – Berkeley, these lava flows, which began before the impact of the asteroid but erupted for several hundred thousand years, probably spilled overhead. 39; immense amounts of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases modifying the climate in the atmosphere.

On Thursday, in the science-based peer-reviewed journal Science, two separate research teams published studies on what they found in Deccan traps.

A study, led by Sprain, indicates that it is likely that the impact of the asteroid has caused the intensification of volcanic eruptions in India, most of the lava having burst about 600,000 years after the impact.

The other study, led by geoscientist Blair Schoene of Princeton University, revealed that the eruptions occurred before the hunt. This implies that the climate changes caused by the eruptions "could have triggered a massive extinction before the collision," reported CNN.

Although the details differ, both studies revealed that volcanoes in India had exploded for about a million years and that both of these events had probably played a role in massive extinctions.

Both reports pave the way for ongoing research on the subject.

Studies have also shed light on our time of global warming attributable to humans: The study of past climate change "is as relevant today as these catastrophic events in the history of the past. Earth, "concludes Schoene's study.

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