Source: Flood Basalt Eruptions: NASA Warns That Some Volcanoes Could Warm Climate, Destroy Ozone Layer A new NASA climate simulation suggests that extremely large volcanic eruptions called “flood basalt eruptions” could significantly warm Earth’s climate and devastate the ozone layer that shields life from the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. The findings contradict prior research that found these volcanoes cool the climate. The simulation also suggests that while extensive flood-basalt eruptions on Mars and Venus may have helped warm their climates, they may have also doomed the long-term habitability of these worlds by contributing to water loss. . . . Empirical science proceeds based upon reproducible results by independent parties. For now, I remain interested but not convinced this is a real risk. Perhaps a Yellow Stone or Siberia eruption might change my understanding. A YouTube video about flood basalt: Bob Wilson
Flood basalts preceded the Great Dying, and were the source of extremely rapid CO2 release that threw all life under the bus back then. They were fields the size of Poland though.
I haven't watched the whole lecture yet, but that is certainly one of the big geologic features here. The similar Siberian and Deccan Traps are much larger, and frequently linked to mass extinctions. Was there any mention of potentially using these basalts as a sink for sequestering carbon? Experiments in the past decade have found liquid CO2 injected into basalt formations converting to solid calcium carbonate very rapidly, even by human timescales.
