Dinosaurs extinction: Not just asteroid, this could be reason for dinosaurs' extinction
dinosaurs, that roamed the earth some 66 million years ago, went into extinction due to an asteroid collision. But the mass extinction theory has been a debatable topic on whether it was just the heavenly objects or other reason for the end of the dinosaur era, as per reports.
A recent study has reignited the debate by suggesting that, prior to the asteroid collision with earth, volcanic eruptions may have already disrupted the ecosystem and jeopardized the survival of non-avian dinosaurs.
A team of international researchers have asserted that the world where the dinosaurs lived was having a critical level of sulfur, which ultimately led to their extinction.
According to the research, such instability would have caused a sharp decrease in temperature globally, making the environment uninhabitable for life.
The findings of the team were published in Science Advances in October and it was released last week.
Don Baker, a geologist at McGill University and co-author of the study said that repeated volcanic winters that could have lasted for decades would have led to certainly unstable climatic conditions.
Adding that, «Our work helps explain this significant extinction event that led to the rise of mammals and the evolution of our species.»
As a part of their research, the team visited several places that were roamed by the dinosaurs including the rugged plateau in Western India, where the team collected samples to analyze the amount of sulfur and fluorine that were spewed by volcanic activities some 200,000 years before the extinction of dinosaurs.
The team also developed new techniques to measure the amount of sulfur and fluorine during that time of rock formation.
