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Flood basalts and extinction eventsThe largest known effusive eruptions during the Cenozoic and Mesozoic Eras, the voluminous flood basalts, have long been suspected as being associated with major extinctions of biotic species. Despite the possible errors attached to the dates in both time series of events, the significance level of the suspected correlation is found here to be 1 percent to 4 percent. Statistically, extinctions lag eruptions by a mean time interval that is indistinguishable from zero, being much less than the average residual derived from the correlation analysis. Oceanic flood basalts, however, must have had a different biological impact, which is still uncertain owing to the small number of known examples and differing physical factors. Although not all continental flood basalts can have produced major extinction events, the noncorrelating eruptions may have led to smaller marine extinction events that terminated at least some of the less catastrophically ending geologic stages. Consequently, the 26 Myr quasi-periodicity seen in major marine extinctions may be only a sampling effect, rather than a manifestation of underlying periodicity.
Document ID
19930067226
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Stothers, Richard B.
(NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies New York, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
July 9, 1993
Publication Information
Publication: Geophysical Research Letters
Volume: 20
Issue: 13
ISSN: 0094-8276
Subject Category
Geophysics
Accession Number
93A51223
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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