Re: Mass Extinction

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

Original Message by Kashman7@aol.com Friday, 15. November 2002 06:02 

> Lest we forget the Deccan Traps [...], could the former have been
> started/caused by such a strike [...]?

No, because the Deccan volcanism began about 400,000 years before the K-T 
(and ended about 300,000 years after it). Apart from that, you'd need an 
enormous impact in that place to trigger melting in the mantle below... 
probably a bigger impact than Chicxulub (which, after all, didn't do it).

(Refs: Two Scientific American articles from 1990 or maybe 1989, in a digest 
"Saurier und Urvögel" of the German version. One, by Walter Alvarez and Frank 
Asaro, argues for the impact, the other, by Vincent E. Courtillot, argues for 
the connection between flood basalts and mass extinctions.)