How have volcanic eruptions shaped our planet?
Mass extinctions
Large igneous provinces are also intimately linked with mass extinctions over the course of Earth’s history.Five significant mass extinction events can be seen in the geological record.- End Ordovician, 444 million years ago
- Late Devonian, 375 million years ago
- End Permian, 251 million years ago
- End Triassic, 200 million years ago
- End Cretaceous, 66 million years ago
Deccan Traps
The most famous of these extinctions is the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 66.25 million years ago. One of the leading theories as a cause for this extinction are the Deccan Traps.
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