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Dinosaur Extinction Web Sites
The following is a short list of some important and/or interesting research papers. You may be able to get these online through JSTOR, Science Direct or other online technical journal searches, or you may be able to get them through interlibrary loans)
- McLean, D.M., 1985, Deccan traps mantle degassing in the terminal Cretaceous extinction. Cretaceous Research, v. 6, no. 3, p. 235-259. Provides theory for how flood basalts in the Deccan traps would have caused increased oceanic and atmospheric CO2, which caused major perturbations in the carbon cycle, ocean acidity, and disruption of the algal productivity-gravity pump of CO2, and mass extinction.
- Wignall P.B., 2001, Large igneous provinces and mass extinctions: Earth Science Reviews, v.53, no. 1-2, p. 1-33. Examines the coincidence in timing of several large extinction events to the formation of large igneous provinces, and shows where there is good correlation (as with the Deccan traps at the end of the Cretaceous) and where there may be problems with direct correlations. In some cases, the major eruption phases appears to post-date some of the extinctions. Notes that 6 of 11 large igneous provinces (which represent periods of large volcanism) coincide with global warming and marine anoxia, suggesting that volcanic CO2 emissions have a profound effect on global climate.
See also Mass Extinctions Web Sites
See also Earth History Web Sites (links to mass extinctions by period)
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