Intense volcanism gave rise to the dinosaurs

[UM-Bot]

A mass extinction event 200 million years ago made it possible for the dinosaurs to dominate the planet.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/308668/intense-volcanism-gave-rise-to-the-dinosaurs

[+DanL]

One of the current theories on this is that the eruptions were caused by a just enormous asteroid strike on the exact opposite side of the planet. The shock waves going through the liquid core basically caused a blow out on the other side which was Siberia at the time. They just recently identified another huge crater even bigger than the one off the Yucatan peninsula that was the one at the time of the dinosaur extinction. This stuff happens on a fairly regular basis. If people don't want to go the way of so many other species in the past we need to get OFF this planet so all our eggs aren't in one basket. I think this is sort of a cosmic IQ test and probably the end of a lot of promising intelligence.

[paperdyer]

Well according to Wikipedia, Pangaea started drifting apart about 175 million years ago.  If there was such an asteroid strike, it could have caused the continental drift.

[BeastieRunner]

Makes sense that a mass extinction event leads to another group taking over.

[+Hammerclaw]

It's called the Permian Extinction and it's long been known volcanism caused it in the form of flood basalt flows creating the Siberian Traps.

[Doc Socks Junior]

 

2 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

It's called the Permian Extinction and it's long been known volcanism caused it in the form of flood basalt flows creating the Siberian Traps.

It's not the Permian extinction. The end Permian mass extinction...or "Great Dying" was ca. 252 Ma. This study is concerned with the end Triassic, at ca. 201 Ma, and the CAMP volcanism.