Did volcanoes in India kill dinosaurs?

PTI Dec 10, 2012, 05.45AM IST

NEW YORK: Volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps near modernday Mumbai, and not an asteroid, may have killed the dinosaurs about 65-million-years ago, according to a new study.

Research suggests that tens of thousands of years of lava flow from the Deccan Traps may have spewed poisonous levels of sulphur and carbon dioxide and caused the mass extinction through the resulting global warming and ocean acidification.

The findings are the latest volley in an ongoing debate over whether an asteroid or volcanism killed off the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago in the mass dieoff known as the K-T extinction.

Proponents of the Alvarez hypothesis argue that a giant meteorite impact at Chicxulub, Mexico, around 65 million years ago released toxic amounts of dust and gas, blocking out the Sun to cause widespread cooling, choking the dinosaurs and poisoning sea life. The meteorite impact may also have set off volcanic activity, earthquakes and tsunamis.

The new research "really demonstrates that we have Deccan Traps just before the mass extinction, and that may contribute partially or totally to the mass extinction," said Eric Font, a geologist at the University of Lisbon.