Volcanism triggered by asteroid impact drove dinosaurs to extinction: Study

A surge in volcanic eruptions triggered by the asteroid that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago may have contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs, a study of prehistoric lava flows reveals.

Volcanoes doubled their output within 50,000 after the asteroid strike set off the last mass extinction on Earth, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a study published on Thursday.

Professor Paul Renne said, “Based on our dating of the lavas, we can be pretty certain that the volcanism and the impact occurred within 50,000 years of the extinction, so it becomes somewhat artificial to distinguish between them as killing mechanisms: both phenomena were clearly at work at the same time."

The earthquakes produced when the space rock thumped into Earth likely shook up volcanoes that spewed out more material when they erupted, the study added.

The increase in volcanic activity after the impact pumped enough dust and noxious fumes into the atmosphere to blanket the Earth and drive many species to extinction.

The asteroid or comet that crashed into Earth was likely more than 10 kilometers (six miles) in diameter. It released more energy than a billion of the nuclear bombs that destroyed Hiroshima in Japan during World War II.

The asteroid left its impact mark at Chicxulub crater in Mexico which is 200 kilometers (125 miles) wide.

The study also found that it took land and ocean life about 500,000 years to emerge from the devastation.

"If our high-precision dates continue to pin these three events - the impact, the extinction and the major pulse of volcanism - closer and closer together, people are going to have to accept the likelihood of a connection among them," said Mark Richards, a professor of earth and planetary science and a co-author of the research.

"The scenario we are suggesting -- that the impact triggered the volcanism -- does in fact reconcile what had previously appeared to be an unimaginable coincidence," he added.

For years the impact of the fatal blow that wiped out the dinosaurs was debated by scientist. While some researchers said the asteroid was the main driver for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, others claimed that it was huge volcanic eruptions behind the extinction.

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