Dinosaurs were not wiped out by an asteroid, but by a mega-volcano: a new theory from scientists.

Researchers are systematically proposing theories about the extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The prevailing official theory suggests that these ancient creatures were wiped out by a massive asteroid that struck the Yucatán Peninsula. However, the latest theory regarding the dinosaurs’ demise comes from a team at Dartmouth University, and their perspective significantly diverges from previous hypotheses.

How did the scientists arrive at this groundbreaking conclusion? The team developed a simulation that utilized real geological data to analyze over 300,000 possible scenarios. They employed around 128 processors running in parallel on 512 cores. The system aimed to explain the fossil records from a million years before and after the dinosaurs’ extinction. The researchers incorporated geological and climatic data gathered from three deep-sea core samples, each containing fossils dating back between 67 and 65 million years, as reported by the Daily Mail.

The modeling revealed that the final blow to the dinosaurs came from toxic gases emitted by the Indian supervolcano known as the Deccan Traps, which triggered climate change hundreds of thousands of years before the asteroid impact. According to the researchers, during nearly a million years of its eruptions, this supervolcano released 10.4 trillion tons of carbon dioxide and 9.3 trillion tons of sulfur dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere.

As the researchers noted, it is well-known in the scientific community that volcanic eruptions can lead to mass extinctions. However, this study represents the first independent assessment of volatile emissions based on evidence of their environmental impact. Brenhin Keller, an assistant professor in the Earth Sciences department, explained that the model processed data to determine the amount of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide necessary to cause climate change and disrupt the carbon cycle. At the end of each run, all processors compared their results, leading to the hypothesis of dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide emissions during what paleontologists refer to as the “Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.” This can be entirely attributed to the Indian supervolcano, the Deccan Traps.

Not all of the scientific community agrees with the Dartmouth researchers’ theory. However, they emphasize that they are merely conveying information derived from their computer model.