Positioned between the worst mass extinction of all time and the one that finished off the dinosaurs, the Triassic extinction is, understandably, less notorious. But in its own way, it was just as consequential.
It’s the event that gave the dinosaurs dominion over the planet in the first place, as tremendous eruptions brought on a wave of climate change that swept away their competitors, not to mention three-fourths of all species.
When Did the Triassic Period End?
At the end of the Triassic Period, just over 200 million years ago, the supercontinent Pangaea was breaking apart. In the wake of its dissolution, as Africa and the Americas separated, intense volcanic activity produced the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, which experts often call by its acronym, CAMP.
Paleontologist Paul Olsen describes this 4.3 million square mile lava field from his office at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “The rock underneath me is part of the CAMP,” he explains.
