Thursday, April 15, 2010

CAMP and the Triassic-Jurassic Extinction


A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week (online as of March 22) suggests that it was indeed the volcanism associated with CAMP (the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province) that was directly responsible for the end-Triassic extinction (and therefor, the extinction of many major groups of Crurotarsans). The findings show that the carbon isotope excursion (CIE) of the extinction occured simultaneously with the erruption of CAMP. The close relationship between the extinction, the eruptions, and the CIE is the strongest evidence yet presented for a volcanic cause for the Triassic-Jurassic extinction. Below, I list two news articles that discuss the paper. The full citation for the paper can be found on the resources page of this site.

Wired: Dinosaurs Rode Volcanic Armageddon to Victory
Discovery News: How Dinos Ruled The World

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