Scientists at the University of Rhode island in the United States disproved the popular myth that the reason for the mass extinction 215 million years ago in the Triassic period was an asteroid or climate change. The disappearance of many different types in fact, it was a slow and gradual process and not associated with any catastrophic event. Briefly about the study reported in a press release on Phys.org.
Paleontologists have analyzed sediments, whose age is millions of years 205-227 National Park and the Petrified forest in Arizona (USA). They tested a number of hypotheses to explain the disappearance of ancient vertebrates in the late Triassic, including the fall of an asteroid in Quebec (Manicouagan effect) and global warming. To do this, they determined the age of the fossil remains of various terrestrial animals, including phytosaurs, armored dinosaurs of Elizarov, large amphibians, and early dinosaurs, and estimated the probable time of extinction.
It is known that the asteroid impact occurred 215,5 million years ago, and climate change 3-5 million years later. However, scientists have not found evidence that the extinction of various species occurred simultaneously that would be expected in cataclysm. Instead, the disappearance of biodiversity stretched for a long period, between 222 and 212 million years ago.
Armored archosaurs Typothorax and Paratypothorax extinct about six million years before the impact and 10 million years of climate change, while species Acaenasuchus, Trilophosaurus and Calyptosuchus died out 2-3 million years before the impact. Species of Desmatosuchus and Smilosuchus, on the other hand, died out 2-3 million years after exposure, in the earliest stages of climate change.
