??what really killed the dinosaurs?

究竟是啥缘由致使了恐龙灭绝？

lingering doubts about the cause of a mass extinction are put to rest

有关恐龙大灭绝的疑问终被解开

英文外刊

one thing about the prehistoric past which almost everybody thinks they know is that the dinosaurs (those, at least, that did not belong to the group of animals now known as birds) were wiped out more or less instantaneously by a collision between earth and a very large space rock.

关于史前前史，几乎一切人都晓得的一件事就是恐龙（至少它们并不归于咱们如今所称的鸟类）的灭绝或多或少是因为地球与一块无量的太空陨石磕碰而致使的。

the crater from that collision was discovered decades ago in southern mexico. the effects of the giant waves created by the impact can be seen in places like hell’s creek, near bowman, north dakota, where marine creatures were swept far inland.

几十年前，我们在墨西哥南部发现了那次碰击所构成的陨石坑。我们甚至可以在北达科他州鲍曼邻近的阴间溪寻找到碰击发生的无量波涛所构成的影响，海洋生物被巨浪席卷到了内陆深处。

and modelling suggests the planet would have been a pretty uncomfortable place for quite some time afterwards, with ejecta suspended in the atmosphere blotting out the sun, and acid rain changing the chemical composition of the oceans.

据模型闪现，在碰击后的恰当长的一段时刻里，悬浮在空气中的喷发物遮挡了阳光，而酸雨改动了海洋的化学成分，地球成了一个极度不适合生计的当地。

and yet… a small group of holdouts paint a different picture. yes, they say, earth was indeed hit by an asteroid or comet some 66m years ago at the end of the cretaceous period.

可是……少量持对立定见的人则描绘出了一幅不一样的画面。是的，他们招认，地球的确在6600万年前的白垩纪晚期被一颗小行星或彗星碰击过。

but that was either a coincidence or the straw that broke the planet’s ecological back. for the rocks also show that a series of huge volcanic eruptions was happening at the time in what is now india.

但这要么是偶尔，要么就是损坏地球生态的最终那根稻草。因为这些岩石还标明，其时在如今印度的地址地还发生了一系列大规划的火山喷发。

toxic and climate-changing gases from these eruptions, they suggest, were the underlying cause of the mass extinction that did for the dinosaurs—a point of view backed up by the fact that two earlier mass extinctions, those at the ends of the permian and triassic periods, coincided with similar eruptions while showing no sign of an asteroid strike.

他们认为，火山喷发所发生的有毒气体以?斐傻氖沟钠蚋谋洳攀侵率箍至蠊婊鹁母茉涤桑庖还勰钍怯惺导矢葑魑С诺模厍蛟诙秃腿屯砥谝苍睦酱紊锎竺鹁黄鹌诮鲇谢鹕脚绶⒌暮奂＃疵挥行⌒行桥龌鞯暮奂！?br>

conversely, several other large bolides are known to have arrived at various times in the past without accompanying extinctions.

相反，地球在曩昔的不一起期还早年历过多次巨型陨石碰击作业，但从未有物种因而而灭绝。

a paper just published in science, by pincelli hull of yale university and her colleagues, casts further light on the matter. it shows that though the deccan traps eruptions, as this period of volcanism is known, went on over the course of around 1m years, they did most of their atmospheric damage about 200,000 years before the dinosaurs disappeared.

耶鲁大学的平切利·赫尔和她的火伴们近期宣告在《科学》杂志上的一篇文章进一步阐明晰这一疑问。文章标明，尽管众所周知的印度德干区域的火山活动持续了大约100万年，但火山喷发对大气构成损坏首要发生在恐龙不见前的20万年支配。

so it was indeed, the team conclude, the impact that caused the extinction, not the volcanoes.

因而，该研讨小组得出结论，致使恐龙灭绝的首恶巨恶的确是小行星的碰击，而非火山迸发。

要点词汇：

dinosaur [?da?n?s??r] n. 恐龙

suspend [s??spend] vt. 推迟；推迟；使悬浮 vi. 悬浮

composition [?kɑ?mp??z??n] n. 作文；构成；成分

coincidence [ko???ns?d?ns] n. 偶尔；共同；一起发生

eruption [??r?p?n] n. 迸发，喷发

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