New study suggests climate change could have played role in downfall of dinosaurs
We鈥檝e long heard that a meteorite likely wiped out the dinosaurs, but an international study is shedding light on how climate change may have played into the extinction of the dinos.
A study recently published in 鈥淪cience Advances鈥� shows that researchers collected rock samples in Western India. The rocks were formed by molten lava, and from the samples, the researchers were able to estimate the amount of sulfur and fluorine that volcanic eruptions put into the atmosphere in a 200,000-year span before the dinosaurs went extinct.
The amount of sulfur that was released could have caused a global drop in temperature. That鈥檚 called a 鈥渧olcanic winter,鈥� according to the researchers, who say repeated volcanic winters would have made life difficult for plants and animals.
This, the study鈥檚 authors say, could have helped set the stage for the dinosaurs鈥� extinction.
Video below: A new theory about asteroid that killed dinosaurs
