Geologists have determined that volcanoes likely contributed to the so-called Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), an exceptionally hot period in Earth’s history (about 55 million years ago) whose cause has been unknown.
Climate experts have warned for decades of “tipping points” at which modern global warming might cause a cascade of accelerating, irreversible effects. Now geologists are beginning to identify similar junctures in the fossil record. For example, around 56 million years ago—when our small primate ancestors still hopped through the trees—volcanic eruptions may have sparked hothouse conditions that altered processes ranging from evolution to the direction of ocean currents.
The researchers’ key clues came from a thin core of sediment pulled from an accumulation of undersea rocks near Iceland. This area, called the North Atlantic Igneous Province, formed from magma flowing through and spilling out of Earth’s crust more than 50 million years ago. Scientists had hypothesized that the volcanic activity that created these rocks was involved in the PETM, Kender says—so his team was immediately intrigued by mercury signals in the core sample.
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