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Sunday, July 28, 2019

Mega Eruptions: Disrupt Climate and Often Extinction Events

In looking at mass extinctions, LIPs (large igneous province events) induced almost all of them. But not the one created by Cyanobacteria called the Great Oxidation Event. In the other cases, either excessive amounts of sulfur dioxide SO2 or CO2 carbon dioxide were pumped into the atmosphere in such huge quantities that the biosphere was polluted to the point that much of life died off. With SO2, it was global cooling. With CO2, it was global warming. 
Note: Large amounts of sulfur dioxide lead to short-term cooling (on the scale of tens of years), while carbon dioxide and methane cause long-term global warming (lasting thousands of years).

LIPs:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_igneous_province

Great Oxidation Event:
https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/the-great-oxygenation-event-the-earths-first-mass-extinction.html

Volcanic Activity and Mass Extinctions:
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/massextinct_09