GEOL 303 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Flood Basalt, Plate Tectonics, Radiometric Dating
Document Summary
Massive eruption of lava occurred in india to produce the deccan flood basalt province 65 million years ago, contemporaneous with the k/t extinction event. These basaltic lava flows represents the largest outpouring of lava on earth over the last 200 million years. Huge so2 emissions = widespread cooling and acid rain (biggest factor) Co2 = increases in the greenhouse effect (longer term effect) This hypothesis suggests that the chicxulub impact and the deccan flood basalts eruptions may be genetically related. However, when we reconstruct the plates to their position 65 million years ago, the antipodal positions do not quite fit. End of the paleozoic era is marked by the permian extinction, the greatest of all extinction events resulting in the demise of 95% of all living plant and animal species. As continents came together to form pangea (250 million years ago), and the climate became colder and more arid.
