Re: Scientists conclude asteroid, not volcanoes, wiped out dinosaurs

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

It's extremely common in science that things turn out to be more 
complicated than we used to think, and then they turn out to be more 
complicated still. But this has a backlash -- it appears to be a 
widespread attitude that simple (or, rather, simple-looking!) 
explanations for anything must automatically be wrong. That non-sequitur 
has been a pet peeve of mine for... maybe 15 years now, and I'm only 27.

>  I still don't understand why there has to be a single cause, and why
>  the Deccan traps must have had no effect?

Because the main episode of Deccan eruptions _ended_ 100,000 years 
before the end of the Cretaceous, as did the global warming (by 3 to 5 
°C) its CO2 outgassings had caused. This has been known since 2003:
http://dml.cmnh.org/2006Mar/msg00201.html

Greg Ravizza is one of the 41 authors of the new paper.

>  Why it has to be one or the other?

Because that's what the data say, in this case.

>  The Siberian traps and CAMP seem to have had an impact.

Yes, but:

The Siberian traps are gihugrongous and set huge coal deposits on fire. 
That meant much more CO2 and CH4 outgassed than would have been possible 
otherwise. Despite several candidates, no suitable impact crater has yet 
been identified, while the stepwise temperature increase and C isotope 
ratio shift at the end of the Permian fit the volcanic scenario.

A similar fit appears to be present for the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, 
though there detailed research has only begun, and the CAMP doesn't seem 
to have been quite that big. It was, however, much bigger than the 
Deccan Traps.

(Unfortunately, the beginning of the Triassic is currently defined as 
the first occurrence of the conodont *Hindeodus parvus*. That was a 
non-event that happened quite some time after the extinction. The 
beginning of the Jurassic isn't defined yet, but the leading candidate 
is analogous. I hope they pick a carbon isotope excursion instead, as 
they did for the Paleocene-Eocene boundary.)