The southern part of India (the Deccan region) is covered with a layer of ancient lava flow, often 100s of meters thick. The volcanic eruption that caused this magma to come out of the Earth's interior, possibly also wreaked havoc with the climate of the ancient Earth. French and Indian geologists have now identified a 600 meter thick portion of the lava that may have piled up in as little as 30,000 years - fast enough to have possibly caused a deadly global climate shift:):).

Deccan Rocks (Courtesy: University of Hawaii)According to Anne-Lise Chenet of the Laboratoire de Paleomagnetisme, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), the majority of the total volume of Deccan lava might have been erupted in only a few major events spread over only a small fraction of millennia. To test that hypothesis, the researchers have combined already known ages of the traps gathered from radiometric dating with magnetic fields frozen in the rocks. Volcanic rocks record information about the Earth's magnetic field with magnetic minerals that align with Earth's field like millions of tiny compasses before the lava cools. When the lava solidifies, the compasses are locked in place.
Their study confirms that a rapid eruption did occur, with possibly devastating consequences. It seems that this eruption might weaken the hypothesis that the dinosaurs were wiped out (or in large measure) by a meteorite impact. The time when the meteorite that possibly killed off the dinosaurs crashed into the Earth, is identified by the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) geological boundary in the rock strata, which is rich in Iridium. In the case of the Deccan eruptions, the Iridium layer has been found sandwiched between the lava rocks, suggesting that volcanism started before the impact:).
Now the question is: was the meteorite the cause for the dinosaur extinction, or was it merely the straw that broke the poor dino's back?:-?:-?