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Mon - September 15, 2003


Were They Hot Or Were They Not: Did Volcanic Eruptions Kill The Dinosaurs? 



Which will devastate the planet next: Asteroids from space or eruptions from within? Take your pick. Either way our odds would not be good. 

Any schoolchild can tell you how the dinosaurs died when a massive asteroid hit the earth 65 million years ago. Except that it may not be true. According to a competing theory, the extinction is more likely to have been caused by a huge volcanic eruption from deep within Earth's mantle.
    Research by an American earth scientist, Professor Gerta Keller and her team, suggests that an eruption under the Indian Ocean several million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs devastated the environment. However, at this earlier time there is no evidence of any asteroid impact.
Her findings are based on analysis of microfossil assemblages, which were found inside cores that had been drilled deep into sediments on the ocean floor.

If a similar eruption occurred again today, we'd have plenty of time to contemplate our fate. Keller estimates that the massive eruptions last between one and two million years.

Thanks to Fark for the link.

 

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