Earth's orbital rhythms link timing of giant eruptions and climate change

An international team of scientists has synchronized key climate records from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to unravel the sequence of events during the last million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs at the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary. New high resolution geochemical records for the first time reveal when and how two major eruption phases of gigantic flood basalt volcanism had an impact on climate and biota in the late Maastrichtian era 66 to 67 million years ago.