large igneous province Archives

November 22, 2022November 22, 2022 by Evan Gough

Volcanoes are the worst. They’ve caused extinctions on Earth, and probably killed Venus

This is a computer-generated, three-dimensional perspective of the surface of Venus showing Maat Mons. It's Venus's highest volcano and is 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) high. The viewpoint is located 634 kilometers (393 miles) north of Maat Mons at an elevation of 3 kilometers (2 miles) above the terrain. Lava flows extend for hundreds of kilometers across the fractured plains shown in the foreground, to the base of Maat Mons. The vertical scale in this perspective has been exaggerated 10 times. Credits: NASA/JPL

Is there anything good about volcanoes? They can be violent, dangerous, and unpredictable. For modern humans, volcanoes are mostly an inconvenience, sometimes an intriguing visual display, and occasionally deadly.

But when there’s enough of them, and when they’re powerful and prolonged, they can kill the planet that hosts them.

September 24, 2020September 24, 2020 by Evan Gough

A New Mass Extinction has been Discovered, Wiping Out Life 233 Million Years Ago, and Leading to the Rise of the Dinosaurs

Earth Observation has come a long way. But if satellites could orbit closer to Earth, in VLEO, then our observations would be a lot better. Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory.

Most everybody knows that the dinosaurs perished rapidly in a tumultuous extinction, caused by an asteroid strike about 66 million years ago. But it looks like another extinction prior to the appearance of the dinosaurs paved the way for their long reign. That extinction took place about 233 million years ago.

And scientists have only now discovered it.

April 14, 2020April 14, 2020 by Evan Gough

During Mass Extinction Events, Volcanoes Were Releasing About the Same Amount of CO2 as We Are Today

The Mount Redoubt volcano in Alaska. Image Credit: By R. Clucas - http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-39/album.html and http://gallery.usgs.gov/photos/03_29_2013_otk7Nay4LH_03_29_2013_5#.UrvS2vfTnrc, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5768911

200 million years ago, a mass extinction event wiped out about 76% of all species on Earth—both terrestrial and marine. That event was called the end-Triassic extinction, or the Jurassic-Triassic (J-T) extinction event. At that time, the world experienced many of the same things as Earth is facing now, including a warming climate and the acidification of the oceans.

A new paper shows that pulses of volcanic eruptions were responsible, and that those pulses released the same amount of CO₂ as humans are releasing today.