Mega-Eruptions Drove the Mother of Mass Extinctions

摘要

After 20 years of trying, researchers have finally convicted massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia as the culprit in the greatest of all mass extinctions, one that destroyed 90% of marine species on the planet. The key evidence-reported here last week at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union-came from geochronologists applying the latest dating techniques to both the basalt from the eruptions and the rock encasing fossils of creatures that went extinct about 252 million years ago.