Earth is a planet, and a large part of why many people study geology and space science is to try and keep humanity safe. We often remind you that space is trying to kill you, but we would be remiss if we didn’t admit that sometimes the Earth is trying to kill us, too.

Over the course of history, there have been five major extinction events that have come and gone. At the end of the Triassic Period, about 201 million years ago, 60-70% of marine and land animals, including the massive crocodilian line of reptiles, all died off and made space for dinosaurs to emerge, grow, and eventually become farmyard chickens.

Evolution is weird, y’all.

It’s been suspected that massive volcanic eruptions caused the end of the Triassic, and a new analysis of marine rocks seems to back this up. Researchers found the kinds of minerals enrichments –  benzopyrene plus benzoperylene plus coronene and other molecules – tied to eruptions high in sulfur dioxide and low in carbon dioxide. These are the kinds of eruptions that drop global temperatures, create sulfuric acid aerosols, and are generally bad for your typical cold-blooded crocodilian-line reptile.

Personally, I think the dinosaurs were way cooler than the giant lizards, but apparently, the Universe didn’t agree because space flung a rock at us, and thus ended the dinosaurs.

More Information

Tohoku University press release

“Volcanic temperature changes modulated volatile release and climate fluctuations at the end-Triassic mass extinction,” Kunio Kaiho et al., 2022 February 1, Earth and Planetary Science Letters