Saturday, February 10, 2018

Chicxulub vs Deccan

I have wondered for a while if Chicxulub might have triggered the Deccan Flats eruptions. Two big events happened at a similar time, and we had arguments over which did in the dinos. Chics was winning the debate, but why not have both?

One new proposal suggests that there might be a relationship, and in addition something I didn't think about at all:

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 describe those eruptions as "on par with the largest eruptive events in Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, including the Deccan Traps."

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.

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