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Siberian
Traps, Russia
http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Permian/SiberianTraps.html
The
Siberian Traps were the largest volcanic eruption in Earth history and they
occured right at the same time as the largest extinction event in Earth history.
The
Siberian Traps form a large igneous province in Siberia. The massive eruptive
event spans the Permian-Triassic boundary, about 251 to 250 million years ago,
and was essentially coincident with the Permian-Triassic extinction event in
what was one of the largest known volcanic events of the last 500 million years
of Earth's geological history. The term 'traps' is derived from the Swedish word
for stairs (trappa, or sometimes trapp), referring to the step-like hills
forming the landscape of the region. Vast volumes of basaltic lava paved over a
large expanse of primeval Siberia in a flood basalt event.
Today
the area covered is about 2 million km² and estimates of the original coverage
are as high as 7 million km². The original volume of lava is estimated to range
from 1 to 4 million km³. The area covered lies between 50 and 75 degrees north
latitude and 60 to 120 degrees east longitude. The volcanism continued for a
million years and spanned the Permian-Triassic boundary.
Credit:
NASA, The Discovery Channel, The Smithsonian Institute, USGS
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