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The world as we see it today was born some 233 million years ago, after a hitherto unknown mass extinction, called a ‘Carnian rain episode’ and triggered by a terrible volcanic eruption. The traces are identified by the international research published in the journal Science Advances, coordinated by Jacopo Dal Corso, of the University of Geosciences of China and in which Italy has an important role, with the Museum of Sciences of Trento (Muse), the Universities of Ferrara and Padua, the National Research Council (Cnr) and the Museum of Natural Sciences of South Tyrol. The study is based on the examination of geological and paleontological evidence collected over decades of field studies, laboratory analysis, and computer modeling.
For Andrea Marzoli, from the University of Padua, “in the Carnian there was a huge volcanic eruption, which produced around a million cubic kilometers of magma.” The eruption, experts explain, injected huge amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing global warming, associated with a sharp increase in rainfall that lasted about a million years.
For Massimo Bernardi, paleontologist of the Muse, “the extinction in the Carnian acted as an important motor for the evolution of life”. In fact, sudden climate change resulted in a serious loss of biodiversity in the oceans and on land. According to experts, shortly after the extinction event, new groups, such as dinosaurs, quickly appeared or diversified, contributing to the origin of new ecosystems.
In recent decades, paleontologists have identified five major mass extinctions in the history of life and numerous smaller but still catastrophic extinctions. “The history written in rocks and fossils – explains Bernardi- shows how intense the consequences of great extinction events are. These events are marked by crisis and, at the same time, by renewal of life, in which – he concludes – it is difficult to predict who will be on the side of the losers and who, on the other hand, of the winners ”.
