We are no stranger to bad weather here on Earth, but the conditions prevailing on our planet today are nothing compared to what happened at a certain point in history.
It turns out that the planet had been experiencing continuous rain for two million years, and this was crucial for the spread of life around the world. This event occurred 200-300 million years ago, when the only supercontinent on Earth, Pangea, existed. Indy100.
This was around the time when dinosaurs began to spread across our planet. Then came a period of severe drought, followed by an unprecedented amount of rain that lasted for an incredibly long time. This is called a Carnian rain event, and scientists first discovered it in the 1970s.
At that time, experts found deposited layers in the rocks dating back to between 232 and 4 million years ago. From this, they decided that there was an incredibly rainy period at the beginning of the dinosaurs' stay on Earth.
The researchers then set out to find out the exact cause of the two-million-year rainfall. They concluded that the cause was probably a massive volcanic eruption in the Greater Wrangellia Volcanic Province. This in turn warmed the oceans, adding moisture to the atmosphere and thus causing more rain.
Researchers A Journal of the Geological Society They published their study in the journal and stated that “following the widespread extinction of land plants and their most important herbivores, dinosaurs were probably the main beneficiaries of the recovery period in terms of diversity, ecological impact and rapid dispersal.”
“This was perhaps one of the most important events in the history of life, since it played a role not only in making the 'Age of Dinosaurs' possible, but also in the formation of most of the major clades that make up modern terrestrial tetrapods, namely amphibians, turtles and crocodiles, in the evolution of lizards and mammals.” .
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