The biggest beasts to walk the Earth had humble beginnings. The first dinosaurs were cat-sized, lurking in the shadows, just waiting for their moment. That moment came when four major pulses of volcanic activity changed the climate in a geologic blink of an eye, causing a 2-million-year-long rainy spell that coincided with dinos rising to dominance, a new study suggests.
Clues found in sediments buried deep beneath an ancient lake basin in China link the volcanic eruptions with climate swings and environmental changes that created a globe-spanning hot and humid oasis in the middle of the hot and dry Triassic Period, researchers report in the Oct. 5 Proceedings of
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