New research concludes that volcanism 🌋 and resulting environmental degradation 🌍 was the primary cause of the K-Pg mass extinction event, while the Chicxulub impact 💥 may have caused instantaneous mass mortality in the end.

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#KPgExtinction #Volcanism #EnvironmentalDegradation #ChicxulubImpact #EarthHistory

🔥 Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid impact created a dust cloud that trapped heat, essentially "charbroiling" Earth's surface and causing widespread spontaneous combustion, population collapse, and atmospheric contamination.

☁️ The planet-smothering dust cloud, composed of particles 2.5 micrometers in diameter (30 times smaller than a human hair), prevented heat from escaping into space, leading to intense thermal radiation that was 17 times the lethal dose for humans.

🌍 This global heat and darkness, described as "looking more like hell than like Venus," led to massive wildfires and a global extinction event, with only creatures able to shelter underground or underwater surviving the initial cataclysm.

#DinosaurExtinction #AsteroidImpact #KPGextinction