The crack of doom - or was it?
So you have never heard of graptolites, tabulate and rugose corals, fusulinid foraminifera? It's normal, these are biological groups that disappeared during the greatest mass extinction of all times. 252 million years ago, 95% of marine species and 70% of continental species vanished.
To explain the Permian-Triassic extinction event, several hypotheses have been put forward, with the main suspect being the enormous Siberian volcanoes. CO₂ emissions are thought to have increased the greenhouse effect, leading to global warming, a decrease in the amount of oxygen in the oceans, and their acidification.
Other suspects are also considered, such as Pangea. This was a supercontinent that at the time grouped together all the land masses. The climatic variations between the edge and the center, 8,000 km apart, were extreme. The largest desert ever formed was located there, and the beings who lived there had to face endless droughts and intense heat waves. Whoever the culprit, you had to be damn tough to survive in these conditions. And we had a close call, because life simply almost disappeared!
The Siberian Traps are gigantic lava deposits, evidence of one of the largest volcanic events in Earth's history. These cataclysmic eruptions formed a layer of basalt covering an area almost as large as Western Europe.
Did you know?
The eruption of the Siberian volcanoes lasted a million years, with the most intense phases occurring over a few tens of thousands of years. We warned you, geological time is gigantic.
