Do you enjoy reading about dinosaurs? Do you know when dinosaurs dominated Earth? Well, they did so after a mass extinction event many millions of years ago.

What is a mass extinction event?

It is a period in Earth’s history where a large number of species in existence disappeared (at least 50% of the total). Mass extinctions usually happened due to natural causes.

It is believed that 5 mass extinction events have happened on Earth over the last 500 million years. One of the most well-known mass extinction events is the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs. It occurred around 66 million years ago.

Now, scientists say they have found evidence of a new mass extinction event. This one actually helped dinosaurs to dominate the Earth for more than 200 million years.

It is called the Carnian Pluvial Episode. It took place 232 million to 234 million years ago.

This event was likely caused by massive volcanic eruptions in western Canada. These huge eruptions released a lot of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the air, causing global warming. This led to many species going extinct on land and in the ocean.

After the extinction event, new species of plants and animals took over the planet. The Carnian Pluvial Episode also marked the start of the type of coral reefs as we see today.

This is also when many dinosaurs emerged along with some of the first turtles, crocodiles and mammals.

Though they already originated about 20 million years before but, they were not important then. Dinosaurs dominated Earth only after the mass extinction event.

However, the dry climate after the Carnian Pluvial Episode suited dinosaurs and led to their dominance of the planet.

Here is a video on mass extinctions on Earth:

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