Dinosaurs wiped out by giant asteroid and super volcanoes

Sometimes you just can't catch a break.

A new study has concluded that dinosaurs were killed off by a massive asteroid impact followed by giant volcanic eruptions.

The Deccan Traps, super volcanoes in northern India, doubled their eruptions in the 50,000 years after Earth was struck by a huge asteroid around 66 millions years ago off the coast of Mexico.

These events combined to create a global climate disturbance of apocalyptic proportions; polluting the atmosphere and blackening the skies.

Paul Renne of the University of California, Berkeley, writing in the journal Science said:

Based on our dating of the lavas, we can be pretty certain that the volcanism and the impact occurred within 50,000 years of the extinction, so it becomes somewhat artificial to distinguish between them as killing mechanisms.

Both phenomena were at work at the same time. It is impossible to ascribe actual atmospheric effects to one or the other. They both happened at the same time.

He added:

Our data doesn't conclusively prove that the impact caused these changes, but the connection looks increasingly clear.

Sorry, dinosaurs...

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