According to different sources, we have been led to believe that the dinosaurs died due to high temperatures. However, a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests the opposite: the dinosaurs died frozen, not burned.
End-Triassic Extinction
According to the research, the end-Triassic extinction occurred because sulfate particles thrown into the atmosphere cooled the planet, freezing many of its inhabitants to death, including the dinosaurs.
Although the gradual increase in temperatures in an already hot environment may have eventually killed off the dinosaurs, volcanic winters caused the most damage, according to the researchers.
Volcanic Winter
To reach these conclusions, the researchers correlated data from deposits in Morocco, Nova Scotia, and the Newark Basin in New Jersey.
Their analyses showed that the volcanic eruptions released sulfates so rapidly that the sun was largely blocked, leading to a collapse in temperatures.
These volcanic winters were devastating, although volcanic sulfate aerosols tend to disappear from the atmosphere within a few years.
After the extinction event, ecosystems slowly recovered over the following millions of years, paving the way for the Jurassic period, during which dinosaurs became the dominant land vertebrates.
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