For years it has been thought that the dinosaur was brought to extinction by either an asteroid or volcanic activity. Researchers have now found that it was both of these that brought down the dinosaur. With the eruptions it may have caused the climate to change for the dinosaurs and other forms of life on earth. The study shows that 250,000 years before the asteroid hit the earth, volcanic eruptions started to spew rocks and debris. They found that in India when an asteroid hit the earth it caused the volcanic eruptions to continue for another half million years.
Not all researchers have found this new study to be true. Some are skeptical of the findings and say that it was not both but just the asteroid. They also believe the rocks don’t show that it was the climate change that brought the dinosaur to extinction. They need to keep an open mind to what did cause the extinction, be it asteroid, volcanic eruptions, or both.
During this period there were more than just dinosaurs that became extinct. Other living animals and plants also disappeared some 66 million years ago. It is known that when the volcanoes started spewing out gas and debris it caused the atmosphere to change to where they could no longer breathe.
The study was conducted using the zircon crystals that were trapped in the magma, hot liquid layers of lava. They found that these crystals may have produced about 80-90 percent of the rock from the volcanoes over 750,000 years. When they compared the crystals ratio of uranium to lead is how they determined the age.
The question is if the asteroid had not hit the earth would the volcanoes have erupted and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.