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Remember the terrible earthquake and fiery volcano that killed off the dinosaur in Disney ’s original " Fantasia " ? Those scenes were n’t far from the the true , a new study suggests .
According to an international research team , theChicxulub meteor impact66 million twelvemonth ago may have triggered a magnitude-11 seism that shook loose massive amounts of lava in India . The finding were published April 30 in the journal Geological Society of America Bulletin .
The Deccan Traps form steep cliffs in western India.
The mega - eruption formed the Deccan Traps , a series of massive lava fall that once spread over most of India . The lava break from many different break over a span of several million yr . The liquified sway emerge from a pall plume , a jumbo blob of magma underneath the Earth ’s crust . The eruption began well before the Chicxulub impact and ended long after the meteor hit Earth . [ Big bam : account ’s 10 Most Destructive Volcanoes ]
But about 70 percent of the Deccan Traps lava spewed forth begin within 100,000 eld of the impact , said lead subject area source Mark Richards , a geophysicist at the University of California , Berkeley . " The eruptions may have been kicked into high gear by the Chicxulub impact , " I. A. Richards told Live Science .
The novel manakin ’s results differ from those of earlier work that had suggested the Chicxulub encroachment melted rock midway around the Earth . ( The impact volcanic crater is located offshore Mexico ’s Yucatán Peninsula . ) That ’s only not possible , the field ’s generator concluded . Instead , the researchers say that powerful seismic waves touch off an immense outpouring of existing lava . The eruptions then hold up several hundred thousand yr , entomb India under molten rock . They guess the meteor wallop was as strong as a magnitude-11 earthquake .
An illustration of a mantle plume parked under India, the source of the Deccan traps eruptions.
" The evidence is circumstantial , but all the arrow keep pointing in the same direction , " Richards said .
Because of the rocks ' years and the difficulty of dating lava rocks , scientists take issue about when some of the lava flows emerged . However , stain buried between some lava flows suggest the Deccan Traps were on a break before the impact .
scientist have also seen innovative earthquakes spark clap at dormant volcanoes and also elevate mud volcano through liquefaction , when H2O excite loose from besotted sand and mud . For illustration , in September 2013 , amud island appeared offshore Pakistanafter a major quake .
The investigator now plan to search for other volcanic eruptions trigger off by the wallop , such as monolithic lava fountain on the sea floor .
Last year , the research team also traveled to India and pull in rock samples that can be used to precisely date the lava flows . The new ages , which are being readied for publishing , may serve marshal geologic grounds that the impact and the Deccan Traps are closely linked in sentence , Richards say .
Because the years of the rock’n’roll is not well constrained , there islively consider over whether the Deccan Traps contributed to the Cretaceous great deal extinction . The lava flows in all probability spit massive amount of toxic gases and ash tree into the atmosphere , but scientists ca n’t say for sure whether the effects helped kill off the dinosaurs and other creatures . study have dated the sight extinction to within 40,000 geezerhood of the meteor impact .
