The Triassic Period ended with a millionyear rain storm that paved the way for the reign of the dinosaurs, a new paper claims
Before the dawn of the age of dinosaurs, a heavy rain descended upon the supercontinent Pangaea, and it kept raining for more than a million years. This epic rainy spell, known now as the Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE), occurred roughly 233 million years ago and was a stark shift from the typically arid conditions of the late Triassic Period. But storms weren’t the only change Earth was facing. Recent fossil evidence suggests the CPE was a major extinction event, driven by volcanic eruptions and climate change, that resulted in the deaths of one-third of all marine species, plus a significant number of plants and animals.