Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives

Abstract

This volume covers new developments and research on mass extinctions, volcanism, and impacts, ranging from the ancient Central Iapetus magmatic province linked with the Gaskiers glaciation to thermogenic degassing in large igneous provinces, the global mercury enrichment in Valanginian sediments, and the Guerrero-Morelos carbonate platform response to the Caribbean-Colombian Cretaceous large igneous province. This section is followed by a series of end-Cretaceous studies, including the implications for the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary event in shallow platform environments and correlation to the deep sea; the role of wildfires linked to Deccan volcanism on ecosystems from the Indian subcontinent; rock magnetic and mineralogical study of Deccan red boles; and factors leading to the collapse of producers during Deccan Traps eruptions and the Chicxulub impact.

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The Geological Society of America
Special Paper 544
Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions:
Retrospectives and perspectives
Grzegorz Racki
Faculty of Earth Sciences, University of Silesia, Będzińska 60, 41-200 Sosnowiec, Poland
ABSTRACT
In recent models of earth-system crises, the correlation between the major Pha-
nerozoic mass extinctions and large igneous provinces has been well established.
Specifically, pulsed massive exhalations of large amounts of volcanogenic CO2 trans-
formed Earth’s atmosphere, leading to an excessive greenhouse effect and global
warming, combined with slowed oceanic circulation, oxygen deficiency, and seawater
acidification. In a historical context, however, the path leading to this neocatastrophic
doctrine, traced by way of ever-more-convincing proofs (in recent years, via mercury
anomalies), was convoluted for many objective and notional-personal reasons. From
the late eighteenth century to the revolutionary 1980s, the reception of this conceptual
route in the English-language mainstream science was determined principally by the
rise and fall of the orthodox nonprogressive (steady-state) paradigm of the Lyellian
uniformitarian. The main cognitive steps, pioneered frequently in continental Europe,
included such principal conclusions as: (1) volcanic eruptions are a natural process,
consisting of heat being vented from a central incandescent core, itself a relic of an
initial nebular state; (2) cataclysmic phenomena were far more intense in the geologic
past, both in orogenic and nonorogenic time intervals, with a dominant nonactualistic
style of fissure-type effusive activity in intraplate settings, recorded in vast trap-type
basalt successions (= large igneous provinces); (3) volcanogenic gaseous emanations,
dominated by carbon dioxide and water vapor, had a strong impact on the global
climate in the geological past toward the global warmth mode; and (4) this “volcanic
greenhouse” was deleteriously augmented by several forms of immanent stress feed-
back (resulting in anoxia, acidification, hypercapnia, acid rains, ultraviolet radiation,
etc.). Overall, diverse global ecosystem interactions, combined with the updated large
igneous province scenario, can elucidate all major destructive factors in the biosphere,
such as regressive versus transgressive sea-level changes and cooling versus warming
climatic responses. Notwithstanding the particularity of each major biodiversity crisis
in the Phanerozoic, however, a greenhouse/icehouse volcanism-driven catastrophe is a
well-confirmed key toward better understanding these biotic turnovers over a variety
of time scales and feedbacks. The holistic volcanic “press-pulse” model involves the
joint action of two different types of stress factors: long-lived (“press”) large igne-
ous provinces and a variety of critically sudden (“pulse”) disturbances. Therefore,
Racki, G., 2020, Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives, in Adatte, T., Bond, D.P.G., and Keller, G., eds., Mass Extinc-
tions, Volcanism, and Impacts: New Developments: Geological Society of America Special Paper 544, p. 1–34, https://doi.org/10.1130/2020.2544(01). © 2020 The
Geological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permission to copy, contact editing@geosociety.org.
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2 G. Racki
INTRODUCTION
Since the 1980s, volcanic eruptions have been increasingly
seen as a key factor in ecosystem perturbations on a variety of
spatial and time scales in Earth’s history. This type of global
cataclysm has been recently accepted and thoroughly analyzed
as a main prime trigger of global biodiversity crises (reviewed in
Wignall, 2001, 2005, 2016; Bond and Wignall, 2014; Schmidt
et al., 2015; Bond and Grasby, 2017; Ernst and Youbi, 2017;
Clapham and Renne, 2019; among others). In contrast to earlier
views, the important role of meteorite impact has been proved
solely for the end-Cretaceous mass extinction (Alvarez, 2003;
Racki, 2012; MacLeod, 2013, 2014; Bond and Grasby, 2017).
A historical aspect of this currently leading extinction model is
tentatively outlined in this review, with emphasis on selected,
mostly lesser known early concepts and persons that concep-
tually finalized the volcanic greenhouse model; for extensive
historical appraisals of related magmatic and geotectonic mat-
ters, see Greene (1982), Muir Wood (1985), Thompson (1988),
Oreskes (1999), Sigurdsson (1999), Şengör (2003), Young
(2003), Pyle (2017), and Svensen et al. (2019). Actually, this
historical account also highlights several concepts initiated in
continental Europe far earlier than is usually considered in the
English-language literature.
This is moreover a broad conceptual introduction to a brief
outline of recent questions in the causation of global events (Iso-
zaki, 2019; Rampino et al., 2019; Racki, 2020a, 2020b). Some
crucial challenges toward a refined elucidation of recent “holis-
tic” volcanic scenarios are finally taken into account.
VOLCANIC CATACLYSMS:
A HISTORICAL RETROSPECTIVE
Although volcanism and related phenomena have fas-
cinated human societies since ancient times in many ways,
including in religious terms, progress over the centuries in
understanding these startling natural events was very slow (see
review in Sigurdsson, 1999). This retrospective outlines four
cognitive stages that finally led to the recently accepted para-
digm of volcanic cataclysm:
(1) What is the geophysical nature of volcanism?
(2) Is there feedback between magmatism and other geo-
logical processes (especially diastrophism)?
(3) Has volcanic activity significantly evolved over geo-
logic history?
(4) Has this spectacular natural process had any deleterious
ecosystem influence on a global scale?
Toward Understanding the Nature of Volcanic Action
Until the late eighteenth century, long-held notions about
volcanoes from Greek and Roman times were generally favored
by naturalists and philosophers (and are found also in poetry,
like in the Inferno of Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy;
Romano, 2016); these involved the venting f subterranean wind
and the presence of sulfur or coal burning in Eaorth’s interior
directly beneath volcanic areas (Table 1; see reviews in Schnei-
der, 1908; Meunier, 1911; Ellenberger, 1994; Rappaport, 1997;
Sigurdsson, 1999, 2015; Şengör, 2003; Oldroyd, 2005; for key
extracts of the source texts, see Mather and Mason, 1939). The
conservative idea of internal ignition, introduced by Lucretius
and Seneca (Geikie, 1910; Thompson 1988; Sigurdsson, 1999),
persisted in the neptunistic doctrine, so influential in the early
development of geological sciences. In fact, Werner and his
school regarded granites and basalts as low-temperature seawa-
ter precipitates, and volcanism action as a localized and ephem-
eral process due to coal seam ignitions, limited essentially to
relatively recent epochs (for a review of the neptunist vs. vol-
canist/plutonist debate, see Zittel, 1901; Porter, 1977; Greene,
1982; Laudan, 1987; Hallam, 1989, Şengör, 2003; Rudwick,
2005, 2008).
Taylor (2017, p. 1) stressed that
When James Hutton wrote near the [eighteenth—GR] century’s close
(in implicit contrast to what was apparently widely believed at the
time) that volcanoes are “not a matter of accident” but rather are ordi-
nary phenomena, “natural to the globe, as general operations,” he was
pointedly expressing opposition to an idea he realized constituted a
formidable impediment to the igneous global dynamics he envisioned
(Hutton 1788, p. 274). He knew that so long as volcanic phenomena
were held to be accidental, the status of volcanic operations as ele-
ments participating viably in a global geological economy was seri-
ously compromised.
the killing effectiveness of volcanic cataclysm should be viewed not only by the large
igneous province size but also by their host geology, magma plumbing system, and
eruption dynamics, determining the magnitude and composition of disastrous therm-
ogenic outgassing. In search of possible pulse signals, emphasis has recently been
placed on large igneous province–related, volatile-rich, mafic-ultramafic intrusions
(owing to the great fluid-bearing capacity of their magmas) and sill-type intrusions
(resulting in the most-effective devolatilization of sedimentary rocks). A simultane-
ous burst of arc magmatism and coeval impact of arc-continent collisions (especially
in tropical domain) on global weatherability are additional cumulative cataclysmic
stimuli awaiting more rigorous numerical simulations.
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 3
TABLE 1. EVOLUTION OF MAIN IDEAS ABOUT VOLCANISM
(PARTLY ADAPTED FROM SIGURDSSON, 2015, TABLE 1*) AND VOLCANIC CATASTROPHISM
Scientist Year Discovery or hypothesis
Seneca 65 A.D. Ignition as a source of heat in Earth (see Geikie, 1910)
Edward Jorden 1632 “Fermentation”-type chemical reactions generate volcanic heat
René Descartes 1644 The burning core of Earth, a reminiscence of its stellar origin, as a source of terrestrial heat
Robert Hooke 1668,
published 1708 Volcanic and seismic activity as a main force shaping the surface of the Earth, with higher
intensity in the geological past due to “fi nite subterranean fuel”
Anton Lazzaro Moro 1740 Uplift of submarine bottom by ‘underground fi res’ exposed subaerially marine organisms
Jean-Étienne Guettard 1756 Identifi es rocks in Auvergne, France, as lava
Benjamin Franklin 1784 Volcanic eruptions, due to injected ash, have atmospheric effects toward cooling
James Hutton 1788 Main geologic role of central heat and magmatic intrusions into Earth’s crust
Lazzaro Spallanzani 1795 Water vapor is the dominant volcanic gas and an explosion trigger
Pierre-Simon Laplace 1796 Central heat represents a relic of initial nebular state
Humphry Davy 1808 “Subterraneous heat” sourced by exothermic reactions of alkalis
Alexander von Humboldt 1823 Linear arrangement of volcanoes related to magmatic activity across the ancient fi ssured
crust of overheated planet
George P. Scrope 1825 Magma likely produced by decompression melting in Earth’s interior
Volcanic activity was more intensive in the geological past and played a main role in uplifted
mountains
Léonce Élie de Beaumont 1829 Volcanic activity has not played any role in uplifted mountains in the cooled globe
Jean-Baptiste J.D. Boussingault 1834 Magmatic degassing of CO2 infl uences the composition of atmosphere and can disturb the
balanced carbon cycling
Sartorius von Waltershausen 1853 Water vapor expansion causes magma fragmentation and pyroclastic activity; recognizes
importance of seafl oor volcanic eruptions
John Tyndall 1859 Discovery of the greenhouse effect
Ferdinand von Richthofen 1868 Recognizes difference between crater explosions and fi ssure, trap-type eruptions, and
nonactualistic character of volcanism
Aleksander Czekanowski 1876 Recognizes vast distribution of Siberian Traps, thought to be a record of synchronous
volcanic eruption
Osmond Fisher 1881 Proposes convection currents within Earth
John Judd 1886 Introduces concept of basaltic petrographical provinces, corresponding to fi ssure-type
eruptions
Arvid G. Högbom 1894 Volcanogenic carbon dioxide causes climate changes toward warming in the geologic past
Svente Arrhenius 1896 Greenhouse effect of heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere, with emphasis on volcanic
source of CO2
Mikhail A. Usov 1916 Implies a causal link between the trap-type volcanism and global catastrophes in the
geological past
Aleksey P. Pavlov 1924 Introduces concept of volcanogenic acid rain
Walery Łoziński 1927 Volcanically emitted ultraviolet rays are linked with end-Cretaceous Deccan eruptions and
dinosaur extinction
Dmitri N. Sobolev 1927 Proposes a scenario of volcanically induced greenhouse crisis, introduced in a hypothesis of
cyclic biosphere development (via diastrophism)
Arthur Holmes 1931 Decompression melting and magma generation by mantle convection, a driving force of
continental drift
George W. Tyrell 1937 Introduces concept of fl ood basalts
Alexander L. Du Toit 1937 Intercontinental basaltic volcanism as a criterion for continental drift
Norman Newell 1963 Six mass extinction events established as major biodiversity losses
William J. Morgan 1971 Convective mantle plumes as hot matter upwellings, generating fl ood basalts as a surfi
cial
response
Peter R. Vogt 1972 Global synchronism in mantle plume convection and trap-type eruptions as a trigger of mass
extinction
Burger W. Oelofsen 1978 Volcanically stimulated carbon dioxide/oxygen imbalance as infl uence on the hatching of
eggs and the dinosaur extinction
MacKenzie L. Keith 1982 Volcanic cataclysm as an earthly alternative for the Cretaceous–Permian impact scenario of
Alvarez et al. (1980)
Robert Sheridan 1986 Volcanism as a key element of pulsation tectonics model
Roger G. Larson 1991 Large-scale intraplate volcanism caused by superplumes from the core-mantle boundary
Michael F. Coffi n and Olav
Eldholm 1992 Propose “large igneous province” for the plume-generated massive crustal emplacements
of predominantly mafi c extrusions and intrusions, with a devastating effect on the global
system
Vincent Courtillot 1995 Cataclysmic volcanic activity linked to most of the mass extinctions in the history of Earth;
the impact and volcanic catastrophic models need not be mutually exclusive (mass
extinction science)
*Only eight of these scientists and years overlap with the Sigurdsson (2015) table.
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4 G. Racki
On the other hand, visionary ideas had already been intro-
duced in the seventeenth century by eminent Robert Hooke
(1668, published posthumously in 1705; see similar ideas in
Olmo, 1681). He introduced not only a concept of crustal uplift
due to volcano-seismic forces, but also anticipated their far more
intensive activity in the geologic past of Earth (i.e., a finite dis-
charge of “subterranean fuels”), thought to be a cooling star
(Figs. 1A–1B; after Descartes, 1644; Kircher, 1664; see Şengör,
2003; Parcell, 2009):
… most of these mountains and inland places where on these kind of
petrify’d bodies and shells are found at present or have been heretofore,
were formerly under the water, and (…) rather by the eruption of some
kind of subterraneous fires or earthquakes, great quantities of earth have
been deserted by the water and laid bare and dry… That the subterrane-
ous fuels do also waste and decay, is as evident from the extinction and
ceasing of several vulcans that have heretofore raged, which consider-
ations may afford us sufficient arguments to believe that earthquakes
Figure 1. (A–B) The igneous structure of the Earth’s interior, after the famous Baroque monograph Mundus
Subterraneus by Kircher (1664; see also Kircher, 1669; A), as a setting for volcanic processes (a complex central
fire being propagated outward via numerous fissures feeding volcanoes) and their surficial manifestation in the
eruption of Etna in 1637 (B). (C–D) Principal volcanic concepts visualized in the engraved vignette on the title
pages of works by Moro (1740; C) and Testa (1793; D). Moro proposed an uplift of submarine mountains due
to the activity of ‘underground fires,’ as an explanation for the occurrence of sea shells on the bulges (see also
Vaccari, 2006; Romano, 2014), and Testa explained mass fish mortality, recorded in the Eocene Bolca Lagerstätte
near Verona, by intense volcanic activity, paired with earthquakes and pollution by ejected sulphurous gases.
have heretofore, not only been much more frequent and universal, but
much more powerful. (Hooke, 1668 [1705], p. 320–321 and 326)
The next truly geological cognitive stage was perfectly
exemplified by detailed field observations of Vesuvius in a beau-
tifully illustrated book by Hamilton (1776; see Fig. 2 herein).
Surveys of extinct French and German, and mostly active Italian
eruptive sites are of principal significance in the development of
novel ideas on ancient volcanic signatures (especially recogni-
tion of ava flows in Auvergne, France, by Guettard, 1752, and
Desmarest, 1768, Fig. 3B; also Figs. 1C and 3C–3D; see Ellen-
berger, 1994; Sigurdsson, 1999; Lutz and Lorenz, 2013; Pyle,
2017; Romano, 2017), as well as studies of the impressive inter-
locking basalt columns in the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ire-
land (Stokes, 1971; Porter, 1977, p. 113–114; Fig. 3A).
In light of the increasing number of thorough empirical and
field observations (summarized in Scrope, 1825; Daubeny, 1826)
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 5
and increasing acceptance of plutonic concepts, an awareness of
volcanic phenomena as an evidence of venting of a molten plan-
etary core became common over the first half of the nineteenth
century (Table 1). This explanatory pattern, so crucial for the
directional interpretation of geohistory (see below), was essen-
tially stimulated by the nebular hypothesis of Laplace (1796),
paired with Fourier’s (1822) heat theory. As explained by Law-
rence (1978, p. 105–106),
The nebular hypothesis had been initially put forward as a speculative
concept … This view of the earth’s origin provided the basis for a the-
ory of geological dynamics [because] the earth still possessed a central
thermal reservoir representing the residual heat of its initial incandes-
cent state. During the third decade of the nineteenth century … the
earth had to be viewed as a progressively cooling, hence contracting,
body whose temperature decreased exponentially through time until
the present … Fourier established the groundwork for a comprehen-
sive theory of geological dynamics predicated on the existence of a
“central heat.” In so doing, he also opened to geologists the prospect
of synthesizing such a dynamics with the prevailing interpretation of
geological history.
A factor of particular significance in the emergence of vol-
canology as a distinctive geologic specialty was the first text-
book on volcanology, written by George J.P. Scrope (Fig. 4A)
in 1825 (reissued in 1862). Scrope attempted to outline a general
geotectonic context of volcanic activity, based on observed (i.e.,
“noncatastrophic”) geological phenomena (Fig. 5; see below).
He had realized the importance of the physical setting of vol-
canic eruptions, indicating the effect of pressure on water-rich
magma as well as the likely production of this magma as a result
of decompression liquefaction. Therefore, the next significant
theory was accepted as a result of the work of Hopkins, who
in 1839 experimentally proved earlier assumptions that rocks
melt spontaneously to produce magma due to decreased pres-
sure, without additional heat (the theory of subterraneous lakes
of lava). As stressed by Sigurdsson (1999, p. 6–7), the decom-
pression model was paired with the advanced idea of convective
flow by Fisher (1881), and conceptually completed by Holmes
in 1931, thanks to the discovery of radioactive decay, applied as
the heat source for convection currents in the lower mantle, and
also as the driving force for crustal plate motion in the continental
drift model (the Fourth Global Tectonic Theory sensu Greene,
1982; see below).
Another milestone achievement in volcanology in the nine-
teenth century referred to the distinction between volcanic (cra-
ter) eruptions and massive fissure extrusions. Already von Hum-
boldt (1823, p. 408) noticed that, “The action of volcanic fire
by an insulated cone, by the crater of a modern volcano, differs
necessarily from the action of that fire across the ancient fissured
crust of our planet.” Ferdinand Richthofen (Fig. 4C) in 1868,
based on worldwide observations, mostly in Mexico, similarly
stated that a tensional regime in elevated areas resulted in “the
periodical opening in the earth’s crust of such fissures as widened
with the approach to the surface” (Richthofen, 1868, p. 54). In
the case of trap basalt, “the matter extruded through fissures may
have been so liquid as to expand at once in thin sheets” in the
course of “paroxysmal actions of great violence” (p. 61 and 54).
Shortly thereafter, LeConte (1872, p. 469–471) emphasized the
importance of “great fissure-eruptions” during “periods of revo-
lutionary change” and mountain formation.
The concept of totally different Vesuvian and plateau erup-
tion types was popularized soon by Geikie’s textbook (1882; see
Fig. 3E herein), and it was rediscovered by Prestwich (1886),
Figure 2. (A) Interior view of the major crater of Vesuvius in 1756, and (B) a two-part succession of volcanic rocks outcropping in a 45-m-
high promontory on the island of Ventotene in the Tyrrhenian Sea, where three lava strata of the Vesuvius type are overlaid by orange tuff,
intercalated by a lapilli level mixed with dark volcanic ash (reproduced plates 10 and 34 from Hamilton, 1776, respectively; for other early
illustrations of volcanic activity see Sigurdsson, 1999, and Pyle, 2017).
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6 G. Racki
Figure 3. First illustrations of landscapes formed by piles of ancient basaltic flood lavas. (A) The Paleocene basaltic columns of the famous
Giant’s Causeway, County Antrim, northern coast of Northern Ireland, the first site of refined volcanic observations (Stokes, 1971; Porter, 1977);
after engraving by Susanna Drury from 1768 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Drury_-_View_of_the_Giant%27s
_Causeway.jpg; courtesy Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering, and Technology). (B) A mass of basalt in ellipsoidal form near Saint-
Sandoux in Auvergne, central France (Desmarest, 1768, pl. 8). (C) The columnar basalt in northern Italy (Verona area), after Fortis (1778, pl.
3; see Romano, 2017, fig. 5 therein). (D) Basalt hill topped with castle ruins at Feldsberg (Hesse, Germany), engraved by Raspe (1771, pl. 19).
(E) The Great Snake River Basalt Plain in Idaho seen by Geikie (1882, fig. 63) as a reference pile of giant lava flows, up to ~100 km long (see
Geikie, 1903, p. 763), erupted via the Neogene fissure-vent system.
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 7
Figure 4. Mostly lesser-known but significant contributors to the modern volcanic scenario of mass extinctions from the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries (see Table 1). (A) George Julius Poulett Scrope (1797–1876), renowned English geologist and political economist, father
of volcanology (lithograph by J.S. Templeton, 1848, after E.U. Eddis. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY; see Fig. 5). (B) Jean-Baptiste
Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (1801–1887), French chemist, first advocate of the significant role of the volcanic release of carbon diox-
ide in carbon cycling (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Jean_Baptiste_JD_Boussingault.jpg). (C) Ferdinand von Rich-
thofen (1833–1905), German traveler and geoscientist, the first to recognize the fissure type of volcanic eruption (https://upload.wikimedia.
org/ wikipedia/commons/a/a4/%28Ferdinand_von_Richthofen%29_-_Ernst_%28...%29Milster_Ernst_btv1b84510245_%28cropped%29.jpg).
(D) Arvid Gustaf Högbom (1857–1940), Swedish mineralogist and geologist, introduced the volcanogenic greenhouse hypothesis, developed
in numerical terms by Arrhenius (photo ~1890, image courtesy ALVIN [https://www.alvin-portal.org]). (E) Aleksander Piotr Czekanowski
(1833–1876), Polish geologist and traveler, first documented in field works a vast extent of basalt traps in Siberia, implied as a record of coeval
eruptive activity (subtitle page from Czekanowski, 1896). (F) Dmitri N. Sobolev (1872–1949), Russian and Soviet geologist, proposed precur-
sor of the recent model of volcanically induced greenhouse crises (photograph courtesy of the University of Kharkov; see also Figs. 7 and 10).
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8 G. Racki
who stressed, notably, that “the old term of ‘traps’, applied to the
Deccan traps, is rightly used if we look at them in the sense here
designated [ = fissure effusions]” (Prestwich, 1886, v. I, p. 389).
Furthermore, Judd (1886, p. 54) distinguished “petrographical
provinces,” which are marked by distinctive mineralogical and
textural features, encompassing “rocks erupted during any partic-
ular geological period” (see Harker, 1909; Du Toit, 1973; Young,
2003, p. 182–183). Eventually, the term “flood basalts” for “the
colossal type of basalt accumulation” was profitably introduced
into the literature by Tyrell (1937, p. 100), “to give substance to
a concept that he felt would improve the understanding of the
effusion and flow of basaltic lavas” (in the words of Meyerhoff
et al., 1996, p. 192). Comprehensive reviews of the ideas that
eventually led to the large igneous province model were provided
by Young (2003) and Svensen et al. (2019). The final hypoth-
esis about the huge geographic scale of the trap basalt eruption
appeared after the first reconstructions of the supercontinent (Du
Toit, 1937). However, the first documentation of the vast extent
of the Siberian Traps (~1.1 million km2) had already been pre-
sented in 1876 by Polish geologist Aleksander Czekanowski
(Czekanowski, 1876, 1896; see Racki, 2019; Fig. 4E).
Role of Volcanic Action in Earth History, Particularly in
Mountain-Building
The expansion of catastrophic scenarios in the first decades
of the nineteenth century did not lead to interest in the possibly
detrimental consequences of magmatic outbursts. In fact, this
unawareness was influenced by uncritical incorporation of the
neptunistic viewpoint. As Cuvier (1815) clearly stated:
The operation of volcanoes is still more limited and local than that of
any of the agents which have yet been mentioned. Although we have
no idea of the means employed by nature for feeding these enormous
fires from such vast depths, we can judge decidedly by their effects of
the changes which they were capable of producing upon the surface of
the earth… Volcanoes have never raised up nor overturned the strata
through which their apertures pass, and have in no degree contributed
Figure 5. Volcanically promoted tectonism of Scrope (1825, 1862). (A) Progressively elevated, dislocated, and fractured solid crust
due to expansion from hotter deeper areas, with fractures opened upwardly at A and B, as well as downward in the portion between the
fractures at C, generating the magma chamber (“focus”) at the volcanic root (Scrope, 1825, reproduced fig. 33; see fig. 40B in Şengör,
2003). (B) “A thrust of an axial wedge of granite” that led to formation of a mountain chain “of which the upper layer is laminated
and crumpled by the friction and oblique pressure which it undergoes”; this orogenic uplift was accompanied by volcanic eruption
(Scrope, 1862, reproduced fig. 64).
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 9
to the elevation of the great mountains which are not volcanic. … Thus
we shall seek in vain among the various forces which still operate on
the surface of our earth. (Cuvier, 1815, p. 35–37)
Consequently, the revolutionary Hooke’s geohistorical
notions were only partially accepted in the Age of Enlighten-
ment (e.g., Buffon, 1778; see Vaccari, 2006; Romano, 2014), but
they were revived in the influential long-lived model of “craters
of elevation” of Buch (1820, 1836; see van Wyk de Vries et al.,
2014; http://www.univie.ac.at/wissenschaftstheorie/heat/heat-2/
heat261f.htm). In a major work of nineteenth-century geology,
known as the First Global Tectonic Theory by Greene (1982), the
next influential French catastrophist, Élie de Beaumont (1829–
1830, 1831), who was influential for decades, successfully
coupled two “great views”: (1) “a succession of violent revolu-
tions” (i.e., Cuvier’s paradigm), with (2) “elevation of mountain-
chains by forces acting from beneath” (following Buch’s 1820
model; see Şengör, 2003; Rudwick, 2008). Thus, he recognized
12 systems of mountains as constituting a record of “the surface-
revolutions of the globe which are proved to have taken place by
the mineralogical and zoological lines of demarcation observable
in the sedimentary deposits” (Élie de Beaumont, 1831, p. 241).
This approach paved the way for modern cyclic orogeny-linked
scenarios. He stressed the violent effects of convulsive tectonic
phenomena (Fig. 6), concluding that “some anomalous circum-
stance would be nearly universally observed in the … moment
when an elevation of beds took place” (p. 243). In fact, de Char-
pentier (1835) postulated the related conception of Alpine “mega-
Figure 6. Geodynamic crust deformations in the cooling globe, according to the catastrophic but nonvolcanic theory of Élie de Beaumont
(published 1829–1830), underlying the “great geologic revolutions” illustrated by d’Orbigny (1849, reproduced figs. 53 and 54). In the
shrinking setting (A), a consolidated external crust (b) was separated from a deeper cooled part (a) by a void zone (d), and consequently
(B) sagging solid fragments of the crust (e–g) were variously inclined and dislocated, dividing, to a greater or lesser extent, the sea basin
(c) on Earth’s surface.
glacier” (see also Rudwick, 2008; Krüger, 2013). In general, Élie
de Beaumont (1831, p. 262–263) regarded geohistory as
… a long series of tranquil periods, each separated from that which
followed it by a sudden and violent convulsion, in which a portion of
earth’s crust was dislocated—that, in a word, this surface was ridged
in intervals in different directions.
Élie de Beaumont considered “mighty waves desolating
whole regions of the earth” to be a main devastating factor induced
by orogenic revolutions, in accordance with Cuvier’s doctrine (a
similar scenario for the end-Cretaceous extinction was revived
by Dana, 1896, p. 877–878). Unexpectedly, therefore, especially
in light of Hooke’s (1705) and Scrope’s (1825) earlier models
(Fig. 5), volcanic activity per se was only marginally considered
by Élie de Beaumont in the context of mountain-chain forma-
tive process, which was seen as a contractive surficial response
to slow global “refrigeration” and crustal shrinkage at depth. He
maintained that these abrupt events “do not appear susceptible of
being referred to volcanic action,” but added that “volcanoes are
frequently arranged in lines following fractures parallel to moun-
tain-chains, and which originate in the elevation of such chains”
(Élie de Beaumont, p. 263). Thus, volcanic action could be the
aftermath of tectonic processes shaping the surface of a cooling
globe, such as uplift and lateral shortening. This leading advocate
of late catastrophism, in his comprehensive analysis of volcanic
emissions (“substances of eruptions and the fumes”), inferred, in
terms of the biosphere history, that
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10 G. Racki
The gradual weakening of the [volcanogenic] chemical agents which
acted upon the surface of the globe, compared to the order in which the
different classes of organized beings appeared, permits us to see the
same harmonious plan in the history of nature that we admire in the
constitution of each being in particular. The most complex organisms,
as well as the frailer ones, appeared only after the factors which could
harm them had been almost completely eliminated or reduced to harm-
less proportions. (Élie de Beaumont, 1847, p. 1331)
In the context of mass extinctions, therefore, no progress
was manifested, either in primary catastrophism or in the sub-
sequent uniformitarian paradigm of Lyell (1830–1833), which
dominated for 150 years in geology (see review in Hooykaas,
1970; Oreskes, 1999; Romano, 2015). In particular, Scrope
(1825), as noncatastrophic “actualist” (sensu Hooykaas, 1970,
p. 273), as well as the actualistic catastrophist Élie de Beaumont,
had used comprehensively actualistic methodology. Scrope nota-
bly implied, however, that geologic activity, acting jointly with
forces of elevation (= tectonics) and volcanism (Fig. 5), was
probably more forceful in previous geological epochs. Owing to
the Earth’s progressive refrigeration from an extremely hot and
liquid initial state, he pointed out that
it has proceeded generally by a lent [i.e., slow] and uniform process,
gradually diminishing in energy from the beginning to the present day;
but occasionally presenting partial [i.e., localized] crises of excessive
turbulence, resulting from accidental combinations of circumstances
favorable to the maximum of violence; and particularly the sudden
elevation of continental masses. (Scrope, 1825, p. 240, as quoted by
Rudwick, 2008, p. 128–129)
This idea, implied also for the “overheated” primary globe
by Humboldt (1823, p. 46), was in direct opposition to the non-
progressive (steady-state) uniformitarian vision of Earth’s history
that had just been introduced by Lyell (1830–1833; see Zittel,
1901; Cannon, 1960; Simpson, 1970; Greene, 1982; Laudan,
1987; Şengör, 2003; Rudwick, 2008; Romano, 2015). Thus, the
so-renowned volcanologist as Scrope became embroiled in pro-
found controversy with the emerging paradigm (Scrope, 1835,
p. 447–448), indicating:
The practical difference between ourselves and our author [Lyell] is
simply upon the question, whether or not there are traces on the earth’s
surface of former changes of a more violent and tumultuary character
than such as habitually occur at present—whether the present order
of change is cyclical, and uniform in amount through equal periods,
or progressive and, on the whole, diminishing in violence. The lat-
ter supposition does not … involve any doubt (as Mr. Lyell seems to
imagine) of the permanency of the existing laws of nature. The theory,
for example, of the gradual refrigeration of the globe does not suppose
any former deviation from the existing laws of heat, light, or gravity
(…) as we have shown it is presumable, a priori, that the series of geo-
logical mutations to which the earth is in subject, is a progressive, not
a stationary or recurring series—that our planet, like every individual
form within it, is subject to the law of integration and disintegration,
has had a beginning, and will have an end.
In brief, Scrope (1825, 1835, 1862) was already focused on
far more extensive igneous activity in the geological past, which
he saw as directional, progressive, and interrupted by abrupt
events, with “igneous forces” as the major agents of mountain
uplift (Fig. 5). However, in the next decades, this conclusion,
so obvious today (and for Hooke in 1668!), was either ignored
or accepted with serious reservations, as seen in Zurcher and
Margollé (1868), Judd (1881), Campbell (1888), Hull (1892),
Pavlov (1899), Stübel (1903), Schneider (1908, 1911), and
Schwarz (1910). The best example is seen in the succeeding
papers of Prestwich (1886, v. II, p. 543), who claimed that “the
mode of volcanic action in past geological times was in great
part essentially different from that of the modern volcano,”
but also suggested that “modern volcanoes and the energy and
force of their great paroxysmal explosions exceed those of
the true volcano of past geological periods” (Prestwich, 1886,
v. I, p. 394). This seeming contradiction is fully explained in the
polemical note in Nature regarding uniformitarianism in geol-
ogy (Judd, 1895; Wallace, 1895; Prestwich, 1895). Only the fis-
sure variety of volcanic activity was thought to be of greater
magnitude in the ancient epochs, whereas the increasing thick-
ness and resistance of the crust in the cooling globe were major
factors stimulating the more violent explosive catastrophes of
the present time (as claimed also by Wallace, 1895). Prestwich
(1895, p. 28) recapitulated that “volcanic action, therefore, does
not seem to me to be in any way in contradiction to the concep-
tion of uniformity of kind or law, and to non-uniformity on the
question of degree.”
Guided by “the great Miocene and Pliocene volcanic peri-
ods,” the well-known American geologist Clarence King (1877,
p. 569–570) was therefore perhaps sole epigone of catastrophism
in so precisely addressing questions of nonactualistic volcanism
and the possible cataclysms in Earth history (but compare Mayer,
1863, p. 428; LeConte, 1872, p. 469–471; Sainte-Claire Deville,
1878, p. 269–270; see review in Hooykaas, 1970):
Besides surface change involving subsidence, upheaval faulting, and
corrugation, all of which may be executed on a scale or at a rate
productive of destruction of life, catastrophe may be brought about
by sudden great change of climate or by intense volcanic energy …
Between the past and present volcanic phenomena there is not only
a difference of degree but of kind. It is easy to read the mild exhibi-
tion of existing volcanoes as a uniformitarian operation …; but such
reasoning is positively forbidden in the past … Modern vulcanism
is but the faint, flickering survival of what was once a world-wide
and immense exhibition of telluric energy, one whose distortions and
dislocations of the crust, whose deluges of molten stone, emissions
of mineral dust, heated waters, and noxious gases could not have
failed to exert destructive effect on the life of considerable portions
of the globe. It cannot be explained away upon any theory of slow,
gradual action.
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 11
On the contrary, in the timeless context, Hitchcock (1851, p.
166) however asked:
It is not difficult to conceive how volcanic fires, or aqueous inun-
dations, may have carried universal destruction over the globe, and
bereft it of inhabitants. But where, save in the fiat of an infinite Deity,
is the power that can make this universe of death teem again with life
and beauty?
The view of rapid crustal adjustment/crushing events in a
shrinking globe due to its successive cooling, with or without link
with volcanism, gradually declined after de la Beche’s (1846,
p. 224, 226) outlook that a horizontal displacement (“a strong
complicated lateral pressure”) was a major orogenic factor. In
the next advanced theories of cyclic diastrophism, the empha-
sis on transversal crustal squeezing in overfolded mountain belts
(finalized in the massive overthrust and nappe models, which
finally deposed the global contraction theory) also eventually
led to the more subordinate role of plutonic vertical uplift. The
models of dominantly compressive actions in the worldwide
diastrophic cycles, and their correlative potential due to related
sea-level changes, were gradually developed beginning in the
mid-nineteenth by Élie de Beaumont, Dana, Suess, Haug, and
Chamberlin, among others (see reviews in Greene, 1982; Muir
Wood, 1985; Şengör, 2003). Hence, plutonism was consequently
seen merely as an associated element of episodic orogenic pro-
cess, but not as its major driving process. In terms of possible
catastrophic scenarios, therefore, the main interest, initiated by
Richthofen (1868), shifted increasingly toward inadequately
understood large-volume flood volcanism, linked with epeiro-
genic movements in extensional cratonic settings (see Şengör,
2003; = intraplate volcanism in recent terms).
In this context, terrestrial volcanism was invariably compared
with allegedly far more tremendous but extinct lunar volcanism
(e.g., Zurcher and Margollé, 1868; Hull, 1892; Pavlov, 1899; Stü-
bel, 1903; Schwarz, 1910; Schneider, 1911), and this blind scien-
tific alley in fact persisted until the 1970s (McCall, 1980). Another
concept of embryonic volcanoes (or “crypto- volcanoes”), exem-
plified by the Bavarian Steinheim and Ries circular depressions,
appeared in part to be a flawed notion (see review of abnormally
“cold volcanoes” in Schwarz, 1910, p. 182–188). Nevertheless,
by the first decades of the twentieth century, the rudimentary ele-
ment of the volcanic scenario for mass extinctions in Earth’s his-
tory, i.e., the nonactualistic type of large igneous fissure outbursts,
had been firmly established (see review in Svensen et al., 2019).
The question of the environmental impact of paroxysmal outpour-
ings, in particular, their interaction with the atmosphere and bio-
sphere, remained open. The tremendously damaging effect was
rarely noted, despite the impressive worldwide results of the com-
prehensively studied Krakatau eruption (Symons, 1888; see also
Bodenmann et al., 2011; Pyle, 2017). Therefore, neocatastrophic
visions emerged unhurriedly. This is well exemplified by an
extensive review of volcanic theories by Schneider (1908, p. 112),
who eventually highlighted the immanent and crucial role of vol-
canism in geologic history, adding the symptomatic mention:
We have, then, only the explanation that we see no perfectly uniform
development in the face of the Earth, but that periods of intense crust
movements were followed by periods of calm. No one can neglect this
fact today, which, however, is not to say that the old catastrophic the-
ory should be returned to its previous dominant position.
Volcanic Impact on the Atmosphere, Biosphere, and
Global Ecosystem
In 1778, Pallas (1778) had already hypothetically linked
volcanic cataclysm with the devastative biblical Deluge,
recorded spectacularly in the Siberian mammoth mass mor-
tality. Concurrent, but somewhat more extravagant, works of
Raspe (1776a, 1776b) are far more noteworthy (see also Testa,
1793; Fig. 1D). Raspe first assumed more wide-ranging ocean-
ographic consequences of submarine eruptions, including ther-
mal and hydrochemical changes, and massive killing events in
the “troubled ocean”:
The regular prismatical basaltes seem to be their [submarine vol-
canoes] work; and it is highly probable, that the petrified fishes are
monuments of their heat, which very often has been observed to make
the troubled ocean boil with violence in those places, where Pluto and
Neptune strove for their kingdoms … some sudden unnatural revolu-
tion in their own element, which must have killed and involved them
at once in the sediments of the troubled ocean. On this account, many
argillaceous slate-rocks, filled with petrified fishes, are to be consid-
ered as sub-marine or as sub-aqueous volcanic productions, … many
calcareous slates … are, for the same reason, to be ranked amongst
them … In reflect to the limestone, I shall not for the present launch
into chemistry, by enlarging upon the hypothesis; nor shall I dwell on
the saltness [salinity] and bitterness [?acidity] of the sea, which may
partly be ascribed to similar sub-marine events; meaning only to rec-
ommend the above enquiries. (Raspe, 1776b, p. xxviii–xxix)
On the other hand, gaseous expulsions were recognized early
on as an inherently powerful attribute of eruptive activity. Spallan-
zani (1795) indicated water vapor as the most common magmatic
gas and outlined an idea of a “general circulation” of elements,
including thermal liberation of CO2 from decomposed minerals
(see Sigurdsson, 1999; Galvez and Gaillardet, 2012). In this con-
text, Judd (1881, p. 8) called the volcano “a kind of great natural
steam-engine,” and added that “our best method of investigating
its action is to watch it when a part of the steam-supply is cut
off.” Scrope (1825), Daubeny (1826), and Girardin (1831) cited
a variety of gaseous constituents in volcanic releases, including
HCl, H2S, sulfur oxides, CO2, and nitrogen. In particular, Scrope
(1825, p. 131–132) referred the detection of high amounts of CO2
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12 G. Racki
in lava-derived gaseous exhalations to a study of Vesuvian fuma-
roles by Monticelli and Covelli (1823). He also quoted evidence
that “the emanations are extremely destructive to vegetation, and
… appear to have been equally deleterious to animal life.” The
localized toxicity of volcanic exhalations remained the leading
theme in discussions on the hazards of eruption in the course of
the following decades as well (e.g., Zurcher and Margollé, 1868,
p. 165–167; Mitchell, 1906; but see Weyrich, 1830). In fact,
occasional volcanism and related cataclysmic phenomena (e.g.,
“earthquake ocean waves”) are mentioned in some geological
textbooks as one of many catastrophic factors at a regional scale,
e.g., by Dana (1880, p. 843) and Geikie (1903, p. 828).
However, from the 1830s, a far more significant role for
CO2 was acknowledged in the global ecosystem. Jean-Baptiste
Boussingault (Fig. 4B) in 1834 was the first to indicate that the
composition of the atmosphere was affected by CO2 from the vol-
canic “furnace,” the origin of which was due to the thermal dis-
sociation of carbonates. Simultaneously, he advocated the view
that the global atmosphere remained in a balanced state due to
diverse antagonistic phenomena (i.e., volcanogenic release vs.
assimilation in plants). Furthermore, he even predicted that rela-
tive volcanic quiescence would have a catastrophic effect on the
biosphere due to a disturbance of this gaseous balance and the
whole carbon cycle:
The only case where organic matter would be able to diminish the
carbon from the atmosphere would be a catastrophic event leading to
the death and burial of a large mass of organized beings. Such may
be the case when large parts of the vegetation that existed at diverse
geologic epochs were buried in sedimentary rocks. Carbon that is a
part of immense deposits of coal and lignite no doubt contributed to
atmospheric carbonic acid. (translated in Galvez and Gaillardet, 2012,
p. 557)
This idea of the dynamic equilibrium of the atmospheric sys-
tem was developed by Ėbelmen (1845, 1847; see also Berner and
Maasch, 1996), the originator of the carbon cycling theory and a
proponent of chemical weathering, who said:
Whatever the origin of gases emitted by volcanoes, it is certain that
it is a powerful phenomenon able to counterbalance the effect of the
absorption of the same gas by the decomposition of rocks. These facts
highlight the intimate relationship that these grand natural phenomena
share … Nothing has established that the various factors that modify
the composition of the atmosphere have a null result. (translated in
Galvez and Gaillardet, 2012, p. 560)
The positive interaction between eruptive activity and thriv-
ing plants was also postulated in later papers (e.g., Zurcher and
Margollé, 1868; Hunt, 1880; Sobolev, 1928; see the volcanic fer-
tilization in Ruddiman, 2008). In this context, another heuristic
idea started with the breakthrough discovery of the greenhouse
effect by Tyndall (1859; see Hulme, 2009), although an “aug-
menting stimulus” of the atmosphere on terrestrial temperatures
had been mentioned earlier by Fourier in the 1810s (Fleming,
1998). Even if volcanism-promoted warming had already been
predicted by Weyrich, (1830, p. 29), the process of climatic
change was directly linked with volcanogenic CO2, combined
with water vapor, only by two Swedish geoscientists, Arvid
Gustaf Högbom (1894; Fig. 4D) and (quantitatively) the famous
chemist Svante Arrhenius (1896), in addressing the problem of
the Ice Age. The key passage from Högbom’s novel paper (1894)
on the carbon cycle (Berner, 1995) was translated from Swedish
to English by Arrhenius (1896, p. 272–273) as follows:
… we must regard volcanic exhalations as the chief source of carbonic
acid for the atmosphere. But this source has not flowed regularly and
uniformly. Just as single volcanoes have their periods of variation with
alternating relative rest and intense activity, in the same manner the
globe as a whole seems in certain geological epochs to have exhibited
a more violent and general volcanic activity, whilst other epochs have
been marked by a comparative quiescence of the volcanic forces. It
seems therefore probable that the quantity of carbonic acid in the air
has undergone nearly simultaneous variations, or at least that this fac-
tor has had an important influence.
Thus, the possible imbalance between the composition of the
atmosphere and carbon cycling was underlined in the hypothesis,
in contrast to the ideas of Boussingault and Ėbelmen. This sce-
nario of destabilizing factors at work in Earth’s climatic system
was successfully propagated by Arrhenius only briefly (see also,
e.g., Ekholm, 1901; Stevenson, 1905; Frech, 1908). Indepen-
dently working, the outstanding American geologist Thomas C.
Chamberlin was inspired by Tyndall, who suggested that “peri-
ods of terrestrial glaciation might be dependent upon the carbon
dioxide of the atmosphere whose peculiar competence is to retain
solar heat” (Chamberlin, 1897, 1899; see Huntington and Visher,
1922, p. 36–37). The main factor was likewise perceived in the
pronounced “blanketing effect” of carbon dioxide, but Chamber-
lin was very skeptical as to its volcanic correlation:
I have been unable to find good geological grounds for applying this
specifically to the actual history of glaciation. Our knowledge of vol-
canism in its worldwide aspects in geological times is very limited on
the land and practically nil for the ocean areas, so that a final opin-
ion is impracticable, but even so as far as the evidence goes, I have
been unable to detect a relationship between volcanic activity and the
extraordinary climatic episodes of geological history. (Chamberlin,
1905, unpublished, quoted in Fleming, 1998, p. 86–87)
Paradoxically, Chamberlin soon modified his understand-
ing of the carbon cycle, recanted his views, and particularly
contributed to the marginal significance of “the carbon dioxide
theory” in the next six decades. Other mechanisms of climatic
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 13
control were preferred, such as buffering oceanic and water vapor
(= cloudiness) interactions, widely propagated by Chamberlin
(1906; see Revelle, 1985; Fleming, 1998).
Concurrently, however, another volcanic influence was
being comprehensively discussed in the causal context of global
cooling and the Pleistocene glaciation (see reviews in Dörries,
2006; Bodenmann et al., 2011; Krüger, 2013). As early as 1784,
Franklin had mentioned the possible significance of volcano-
genic contamination in the atmosphere, as well as the cooling
response following an overload of dust (“the vast quantity of
smoke”) from exploding volcanoes in Iceland (Franklin, 1784).
This matching line of “volcano-glacial” thought, in various vari-
ants, was recharged at the turn of nineteenth and twentieth centu-
ries in a series of publications in continental Europe (Taramelli,
1888; De Marchi, 1895; Harboe, 1898; Semper, 1899; for earlier
speculations, see Krüger, 2013, p. 89 and 153), but only Sarasin
and Sarasin (1902) directly addressed the climatic question of
ash overloading. Similar hypotheses were continued largely by
American scientists (Abbot and Fowle, 1913; Humphreys, 1913,
1929), but also supplemented by a cooling effect of volcanogenic
aerosols (see Budyko, 1986). However, more detailed studies
of temperature response to recent and historical volcanic events
led to the inevitable conclusion that the eruptions have no sub-
stantial impact on the climate system. Arctowski (1915, p. 255),
for example, thoroughly studied climate fluctuations matched
with solar controls and concluded that the year-scale variations
of temperature “have nothing in common with the presence or
absence of volcanic dust veils.”
Obviously, therefore, the role of volcanic constraints
was completely minimalized in several synopses on the geo-
logic history of climate, as well as in the context of the evo-
lution of life (Dubois, 1893; Eckardt, 1910; Schuchert, 1914;
Matthew, 1915; Osborn, 1917). In the succeeding decades, two
hypotheses were addressed in paleoclimatological papers, but
the “volcanic hypothesis” had taken a largely dominant posi-
tion over the “carbon dioxide hypothesis” (see, e.g., Köppen
and Wegener, 1924; Brooks, 1926, 1949; Humphreys, 1929).
As claimed, for example, by Huntington and Visher (1922,
p. 45–48): “It seems certain that if volcanic explosions were
frequent enough and violent enough, the temperature of the
Earth’s surface would [be] considerably lowered,” even if “the
volcanic hypothesis has not yet offered any mechanism for sys-
tematic glacial variations.”
A rare opposing view was presented by Scott (1926, p. 272):
There is nothing in known geological history which would justify us
in supposing that such masses of volcanic material, diffused over the
whole earth, were ever maintained for tens or hundreds of thousand
years. The geological periods in which volcanism was most active,
such as the Ordovician and the Devonian, were not those of wide-
spread glaciation. Indeed, the opposite conception is held by those who
find the explanation of higher air temperatures in the greatly increased
content of carbon dioxide; they maintain that the most actively vol-
canic periods were the warmer ones, [with] the carbon dioxide being
supplied by the volcanoes.
Also, Brooks (1949, p. 377) more carefully hypothesized
decades later that
The major climatic oscillations, lasting millions of years, are due to
the major cycles of mountain-building and degradation, and their geo-
graphical effects in the widest sense, which possibly include variations
in the amount of carbon dioxide and volcanic dust in the atmosphere.
The general neglect of the carbon dioxide theory of climate
change (or the Arrhenius-Frech hypothesis in the German litera-
ture) persisted until the 1970s, when anthropogenic effects con-
tinually figured in the vital discussion (see the review in Fleming,
1998). Still Frakes (1979, p. 48) continued that all glacial ages
have probably been forced by astronomical cyclicity, as well as:
The principal effect of abundant atmospheric water would have been
to increase cloudiness and thus reduce total absorbed radiation. Oppos-
ing this was the greenhouse effect due to build-up [in] CO2 content in
atmosphere in both air … and ocean. (Frakes, 1979, p. 31)
Over time, therefore, the volcanogenic antigreenhouse
interactions remained a recurring but more controversial moti-
vating force (e.g., in Geological Magazine: Fuchs and Patter-
son, 1947; Gentilli, 1948; Wayland, 1948; see also Lamb, 1971),
perpetuated in part as a result of the “volcanic winter” scenario
(Axelrod, 1981; Budyko, 1986; Rampino et al., 1988). Of key
importance was the recognition in the 1960s that the permanent
stratospheric aerosol layer largely contained “sulfate molecules”
(more specifically, aqueous sulfuric acid) that originated from
explosive volcanic eruptions (Junge and Manson, 1961; see
Kremser et al., 2016).
On the other hand, updated concepts of the carbon cycle in
the holistic understanding of Earth’s system (Vernadsky, 1926),
followed by the introduction of the plate-tectonic and mantle-
core dynamics theories, served as a crucial impetus for renewed
in-depth consideration of the role of CO2 and its magmatic res-
ervoirs (exemplified by the geotectonic models in the 1980s; for
the recent models and simulation approaches, see Berner, 2004;
Frakes et al., 2005; Ruddiman, 2008; Cronin, 2010).
Volcanism as a Foundation of the Neocatastrophic Vision
of Biosphere Evolution
In the English-language literature, it is assumed that the first
formulations regarding the possible volcanic causation of great
biodiversity crises date from the early 1970s, in association with
the pioneering “biotic revolution” conception developed by New-
ell (1952, 1963, 1972; see also Simpson, 1970). In this context,
Bond and Wignall (2014) cited Kennett and Watkins (1970), who
combined Cenozoic geomagnetic polarity reversals and coeval
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14 G. Racki
volcanic outbursts with microfaunal extinction, which could be
explained by volcanically promoted climatic deterioration, par-
ticularly in polar domains.
More comprehensive views were presented by Vogt (1972), in
which he first proved synchronism in mafic nonorogenic magma-
tism induced by active mantle plume convection. Among geologi-
cal consequences, Vogt stressed the temporal coincidence between
“heightened plume volcanism” and the last four faunal “extinction
crises” at the period boundaries identified by Newell (1963) as
marked by abrupt falls of sea level (see also Moore, 1954). The
best evidence of this link can be found in connection with the end-
Cretaceous mass extinction and the Deccan Traps. Apart from
volcanically induced regressions (due to epeirogenic uplift), Vogt
focused only on trace-element pollution occurring during intervals
of intense hydrothermal action (following the “trace-metal hypoth-
esis” of extinctions offered by Cloud, 1959). He inferred that
it is therefore tempting to speculate that not only the last few but all ten
period boundaries represent times of accelerated plume convection.
Some period boundaries are also marked by intensive orogenies, but
many are not … If plume convection is the primary mechanism reshap-
ing the Earth’s crust, it seems unlikely to me that the environmental
disturbances registered by the biosphere in the form of faunal crises do
not reflect the activity of plumes. (Vogt, 1972, p. 342)
In fact, the roots of the modern scenario of “volcanic green-
house catastrophe” were surprisingly found in so-far-overlooked
Russian/Soviet ideas from the early twentieth century (Racki,
2014), being a spectacular case of peripheral scientific route (see
Maher, 1998), perhaps due to the language barrier. The notewor-
thy concept of nonactualistic volcanic cataclysm was first out-
lined by Mikhail A. Usov as early as 1916. He considered the
association of global catastrophes with trap-type fissure erup-
tions (but not with explosive volcanism), with an example of
end- Cretaceous Deccan igneous province (as anticipated earlier
by Dana, 1896, p. 876 and 938). Aleksey P. Pavlov first offered
the hypothesis of widespread volcanogenic toxic influences man-
ifested by deleterious acid rains due to massive gaseous exhala-
tions loaded with HCl and H2SO4 (Pavlov, 1924). He cited the
Siberian Traps, based on rough dating of this magmatism onset,
without reference to any mass extinction, although he referred
to five such global events (of which three are confirmed today).
The most outstanding neocatastrophic scenario involving
volcanism-controlled cyclic evolution of the Phanerozoic bio-
sphere (Fig. 7), with the inclusion of novel paleophysiological
and biogeochemical aspects, was developed almost at the same
time, i.e., between 1914 and 1928, by Dmitri N. Sobolev (Fig.
4F). He regarded a “breath of the Earth” as the main driving force
of global stress due to essential changes in the atmosphere and
Figure 7. (A) Biodiversity record of geobiological cyclicity (after and translated from Sobolev, 1924, fig. 8; used with permission from Yulia
Mosseichik) as a starting point for (B) Sobolev’s (1927, 1928) model of volcanism-controlled developmental cycles of the Phanerozoic bio-
sphere, as well as for underrating of the end-Permian crisis (modified after Jagt-Yazykova and Racki, 2017, Episodes article, fig. 9). Note the
unique position of prolonged biotic revolutions within the diastrophic cycle, as well as various immediate stresses controlling the diachronous
demise of fauna (commencement of orogeny and magmatic outpouring, combined with a progressive atmospheric oxygen deficit) and flora
(final mountain-building, matching amplified CO2 starvation).
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 15
hydrosphere. In this holistic approach, Sobolev used truly actu-
alistic arguments, linked to the integrated system (Gaia-type)
model of Vernadsky (1926) in his dispute with uniformitarian
dogma (see further details in Jagt-Yazykova and Racki, 2017).
In the time of “death” of Arrhenius’s (1896) theory (according
to Brooks, 1926), as shown above, Sobolev did not consider
climate change caused by the volcanic discharge of extra CO2
(strongly highlighted in Sobolev’s theory). In a critical context,
however, he pointed out the warm and humid setting of the “geo-
logic revolutions”:
In conditions of starvation, animals are very sensitive to physical
influences, among other agents, to temperature. Apparently, it is not
cold, as is often thought, but excessive heat that threatens organisms
with impending death. J. Loeb [1906] showed that the life expectancy
of living systems, deprived of normal development, is much shorter
near the upper temperature boundary than at lower temperatures (…)
epochs of the great extinctions—at the end of the Ordovician, Devo-
nian, Triassic, and Cretaceous—were in any case not cold, but rather
hot. (Sobolev, 1928, p. 580–581)
In summary, Sobolev’s novel model presents a direct link to
the volcanic summer or runaway greenhouse model so popular
nowadays (see below). Another exciting notion, offered in the
1920s, independently by Łoziński (1927) in Poland and Marshall
(1928) in the United States, connected end-Cretaceous Deccan
Trap extrusions with dinosaur extermination and explored the
deadly effect of volcanically emitted ultraviolet (UV) rays. The
deadly UV motif is also a recurring element of the most recent
extinction models of flourishing volcanic cataclysm (Ernst and
Youbi, 2017; Benca et al., 2018).
LAST STEPS TOWARD THE NEOCATASTROPHIC
REVOLUTION IN THE 1980s
In the 1960s, flood basalt or trap-type plateaus were com-
monly accepted as important constituents of the continental crust
(Meyerhoff et al., 1996). Furthermore, Engel et al. (1965) proved
that ocean-floor tholeiitic basalt plateaus in fact correspond to
continental flood volcanism. Thus, the previous phase was com-
bined with successively better understanding of the mantle-core
dynamic, thanks to advanced geophysical surveys and numerical
modeling initiated by the introduction of the concept of convec-
tive “mantle plumes.” Within the framework of a new theory of
global plate tectonics in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the con-
cept of an expulsion of “heat and relatively primordial material”
within the lower mantle, below the stationary hotspots, was pop-
ularized as the Wilson-Morgan hotspot-plume theory (Wilson,
1963; Morgan, 1971; see also Richards et al., 1989). Localized
upwelling phenomena were seen as an underlying mechanism of
continental breakup, leading to massive flood basalt outpourings
such as the Deccan Traps, a symptom of “the forthcoming Indian
Ocean rifting” (Morgan, 1971, p. 43; compare Vogt, 1972).
This heuristic model also improved understanding of the
well-known, since Hutton (1788) and Élie de Beaumont (1829–
1830), long-term rhythmicity of planetary internal activity and
Earth’s ecosystem/biosphere response (e.g., Chamberlin, 1909;
Stille, 1913; Seidlitz, 1920; Sobolev, 1928; Simoens, 1936; New-
ell, 1952, 1963; Vogt, 1972), and finally, as a surficial manifesta-
tion of periodic plume upwellings and eustatic sea-level changes
(Figs. 8 and 9; see the pulsation tectonics of Sheridan, 1986,
1987; cf. the coeval global hypotheses in Fischer and Arthur,
1977; Turcotte and Oxbury, 1978; Walker et al., 1981; Arthur et
al., 1985; Zimmerle, 1985; Rich et al., 1986; McCartney et al.,
1990). Supplementary benchmark contributions to understand-
ing the main control of carbon cycling in an active plate-tectonic
scenario (thought of as “the Earth’s thermostat“ model by Ruddi-
man, 2008), were “the spreading rate hypothesis” (or “the BLAG
model”; Berner et al., 1983) and “the uplift-weathering hypoth-
esis” (Raymo et al., 1988). In the latter feedback, harbingered by
Chamberlin (1899), major collisional orogeny and the exposure
of weatherable silicate series are an important precondition for
antigreenhouse climatic effect leading to cooling (see below).
Thus, the conceptual route of “the new global tectonics”
soon led to the idea of a “superplume” eruption from the core-
mantle boundary, as formulated by Larson (1991). This “giant
pulse” record, via a mushroom-shaped head of magma, based on
evidence gathered from the mid-Cretaceous peak in oceanic crust
production rates, and has been thought as indicated by transgres-
sion, global warming and common black shale deposition. The
last stage of progress toward the recent interpretation of a very
large series of synchronously erupting mafic successions was
summarized by Bryan and Ferrari (2013, p. 1053) as follows:
While continental flood basalt provinces had been widely recog-
nized prior to 1988, it was not until the formative work of Coffin and
Eldholm in the early 1990s and the recognition of major igneous prov-
inces submerged along continental margins and in ocean basins that a
global record of episodic but relatively frequent catastrophic igneous
events was identified and collated.
Coffin and Eldholm (1992, p. 17) originally coined the term
“large igneous province” (LIP), indicating an areal extent above
10,000 km2, to represent “massive crustal emplacements of pre-
dominantly mafic (Mg- and Fe-rich) extrusive and intrusive rock,
and originated via processes other than ‘normal’ seafloor spread-
ing.” They also coined the connection of the phenomenon of con-
tinental flood basalts with the newly discovered areas of anoma-
lously thick oceanic crust (termed “oceanic plateaus” and “ocean
basin flood basalts”; Coffin and Eldholm, 1994).
Although present only in a subordinate role in the propos-
als of the ambitious Canadian K-TEC research group (1977), the
biosphere response to cataclysmic magma outgassing and the
resultant runaway warming and progressive oceanic anoxia con-
stituted an ever-present element of many papers published in the
1980s. Again unexpectedly, volcanism first appeared as an initial
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16 G. Racki
killing force in the case of dinosaurs in a 1978 article by the
South African paleontologist Burger W. Oelofsen, who quoted
original paleobiologic data (regarding the selective reproductive
survival of small ectothermic reptile groups with reduced embry-
onic respiratory requirements). He interpreted them as the sig-
nature of “an atmospheric carbon dioxide/oxygen imbalance at
the end of the Cretaceous caused by kimberlite volcanism, basalt
flows, and a reduction in oxygen production by marine phyto-
plankton.” The vision of “hatching dinosaur eggs” closely agreed
with forthcoming ideas of “the terminal Mesozoic greenhouse”
of McLean (1978) and a severe climatic perturbation due to vol-
canic paroxysm presented in many subsequent publications, such
as Keith (1982), McLean (1985), and Officer et al. (1987), in a
more or less negative reaction to the meteorite impact hypothesis,
proposed magnificently by Alvarez et al. (1980). Of specific sig-
nificance, however, were two lesser-known reviews of the fossil
record by Brunn (1983) and Zimmerle (1985), in which multiple
tectono-volcanic feedbacks, as a trigger of the global ecosystem’s
turning points, were reasonably pointed out in a way that resem-
bled Sobolev’s model (Figs. 8–10). The substantial difference
between the environmental impacts of subaerial and submarine
eruptions was recognized, related mostly to the buffering effect
of seawater blankets (Coffin and Eldholm, 1994). On the other
hand, Rampino and Stothers (1988) first statistically analyzed
temporal links between the initiation dates of the 11 flood basalt
episodes and biotic crises, showing their reasonable temporal
correlation (but concluded that “showers of impacting comets
may be the cause”).
Therefore, since the 1980s, excessive magma degassing in
large igneous provinces and its multifaceted impact on the eco-
system, in particular through the progressive warming response,
constituted a leading theme in all discussions on mass extinc-
tions, exemplified by the Geological Society of America (GSA)
volumes edited by Lockley and Rice (1990) and Keller and
Kerr (2014), as well as by the American Geophysical Union
Geophysical Monograph by Ernst et al. (2020). Starting with
in-depth consideration of recurring igneous events as a trigger
of worldwide ecosystem perturbations and evolutionary catas-
trophes, Coffin and Eldholm (1993, 1994; Fig. 9B) initiated the
modern approach in the mainstream science of mass extinctions,
and the approach was eventually defined by Courtillot (1994,
1995, 1999). Of course, from a paleobiological viewpoint, this
explanatory pattern was consistent with the results of the progres-
sive diversity studies by Sepkoski (1986; see review in MacLeod,
Figure 8. Consequences within the global ecosystem of fast-spreading episodes, according to the pulsation tectonic model
(after Sheridan, 1986, fig. 14; courtesy Geological Society of London; cf. Fig. 9A herein). Note the remarkable combina-
tion of increased volcanic activity with high atmospheric CO2 content and the resulting warm and humid climatic mode,
transgressive trend, hotter oxygen-deficient oceanic waters, and increased acidity (cf. the “superplume model” of Larson,
1991). CCD—carbonate compensation depth.
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 17
Figure 9. (A) Major geologic processes contrib-
uting to widespread oceanic anoxia, in a broad
conceptual setting of the global system, after Zim-
merle (1985, fig. 7; reprinted by permission from
Springer Nature Customer Service Center GmbH:
Springer Nature: Geologische Rundschau, © 1985;
cf. Figs. 8 and 10 herein; see updated models in
Jenkyns, 2010, figs. 7–8 therein, and Large, 2020,
fig. 8 therein). (B) Physical and chemical effects
related to onset of large igneous provinces (re-
produced figure from Coffin and Eldholm, 1993,
p. 48). This first presentation comprises both fac-
tors and feedbacks continuously studied till now
(Fig. 10), as well as forgotten factors, such as
oceanographic changes (circulation and sea-level
changes, upwellings); courtesy of Ian Worpole.
Figure 10. Volcanic super-greenhouse
(“summer”) scenario after Bond and
Wignall (2014, fig. 7), and previously
recognized mechanisms and feedback
by Pavlov (1924) and Sobolev (1927,
1928); modified from Jagt-Yazykova
and Racki (2017, fig. 10). The flow
chart visualizes the expected cause-
and-effect links using the example of
the end- Permian biotic crisis, caused by
Siberian Traps volcanism. Green box-
es—direct effect of volcanic eruption;
blue boxes—proxy killing mechanisms
(UV-B— ultraviolet-B radiation). Two
main (opposite) climate changes are
outlined heavily in light gray (cooling
trend) and bright green (warming trend;
see Figs. 12–13).
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18 G. Racki
2014). To summarize all of the questions raised in the introduc-
tion: Following two centuries of intensive study and the com-
plex variety of speculations and hypotheses (Table 1) discussed
herein, the final challenge in A.D. 2019 concerns only the details
of the decisive role of volcanism in global biotic crises. In fact, it
focuses on the uncertainty as to whether a continuously operating
natural process could be the major or even sole source of stress
leading to the collapse of an ecosystem as a result of its maxi-
mally cataclysmic action.
CHALLENGES FACING THE RECENT VOLCANIC
CATACLYSMIC THEORY
As reviewed in-depth by Ernst (2014), the primary concept
of large igneous provinces has recently been updated on many
key points (also thanks to the better known pre-Mesozoic record
of the “pulse of the Earth”). The current definition is as follows:
A large igneous province is a mainly mafic (ultramafic) magmatic
province with areal extent >0.1 Mkm2 and igneous volume >0.1 Mkm3,
that has intraplate characteristics, and is emplaced in a short duration
pulse or multiple pulses (less than 1–5 Ma) with a maximum of a few
10s of Myr… They comprise volcanic packages (flood basalts), and a
plumbing system of dyke swarms, sill complexes, layered intrusions,
and a crustal underplate. LIPs can also be associated with silicic mag-
matism (including dominantly silicic events termed Silicic LIPs, or
SLIPs, sometimes including so-called super-eruptions), carbonatites
and kimberlites. (Ernst and Youbi, 2017, p. 30–31)
Thus, the main modification embraces the distinction of a
silicic, mostly explosive domain (Bryan, 2007). A conceptual
framework of a magmatic plumbing system for plume-generated
flood basalts and their low-volume mafic-ultramafic intrusions,
which includes recently discovered giant circumferential dike
swarms with a diameter of up to 2000 km or more, was proposed
by Ernst et al. (2019; see also Black and Manga, 2017). How-
ever, an intensive debate on large igneous province formation
took place (see, e.g., Sobolev et al., 2011; Gorczyk et al., 2018;
Tegner et al., 2019; Torsvik, 2019), and alternatives to the plume
model have been postulated (e.g., Foulger, 2010; see http://www.
geolsoc.org.uk/plumesdebate).
The improved volcanic “smoking guns” are robustly included
in a wide variety of modern scenarios of Earth-system crises, exem-
plified by the “Pele hypothesis” (Landis et al., 1996), the “Deev
Jahi model” of Heydari and Hassanzadeh (2003), and the HEATT
(haline euxinic acidic thermal transgression) model of Kidder and
Worsley (2010). For example, the Devonian black shale events were
recently diagnosed by Becker et al. (2016, p. 4) as follows: “sudden
climate change appears to have been the most important common
trigger, possibly linked with episodes of massive volcanism and
times of significant drawdown of atmospheric CO2.”
The current volcanic summer/greenhouse doctrine (Figs.
10–11), so exhaustively reviewed and updated in the twenty-first
century by, among others, Wignall (2001, 2005, 2016), Alvarez
(2003), Keller (2005), Racki and Wignall (2005), Kidder and
Worsley (2010), Algeo et al. (2011), Sobolev et al. (2011), Knoll
(2013), MacLeod (2013, 2014), Bond and Wignall (2014), Ernst
(2014), Erba et al. (2015), Schmidt et al. (2015), Bottjer (2016),
Saunders (2016), Bond and Grasby (2017), and, in particular,
Ernst and Youbi (2017) and Clapham and Renne (2019), can be
summarized in the following steps:
(1) Only the end-Cretaceous mass extinction could have been
caused by the impact of a giant meteorite (see another
impacting body concept in Napier, 2014), but most prob-
ably this was only a final step leading to the collapse of
the biosphere (the coup de grâce), influenced earlier by
Deccan Trap volcanism. An enhancement of volcanism-
derived stress through meteorite or cometary impacts on
a different scale, more likely within a widespread oce-
anic domain, cannot be excluded in other biotic crises
(Rampino et al., 2019; for the impact-enhanced Deccan
flood volcanism, see Richards et al., 2015).
(2) Four other mass extinctions (for updated terminology,
see Racki, 2020a) and several less important crises are
more (Mesozoic) or less (Paleozoic) certainly connected
with Earth-bound destructive factors, with large igneous
provinces as a leading proposed trigger. This stimulus is
supported in particular by recently discovered mercury
anomalies (Bergquist, 2017; Clapham and Renne, 2019),
which also occurred in the Late Ordovician and Frasnian-
Famennian crisis intervals, for which a volcanic trigger is
more or less conjectural (Jones et al., 2017; Racki et al.,
2018; Racki, 2020b).
(3) The climate change toward extreme greenhouse (or hot-
house; Kidder and Worsley, 2010) conditions is the most
commonly accepted, but not the only, immediate killing
factor (Fig. 10). In addition to variable climate control in
particular global events (e.g., Johansson et al., 2018; Black
and Gibson, 2019), many additional factors are shown to
have feedbacks, such as rapid sea-level changes, seawater
acidification, hypercapnia, acid rains, toxic elements (e.g.,
Hg?), wildfire activity, and UV radiation (e.g., Kiessling
and Simpson, 2011; Erba et al., 2015; Benca et al., 2018;
compare “ammonium ocean” of Sun et al., 2019).
Following mostly McLaren (1983) and Isozaki (2019; also,
e.g., Alvarez, 2003; Vermeij, 2004; Bond and Grasby, 2017),
worldwide stress sources are seen herein only in three overall
groups of ultimate control (Racki, 2020a):
(1) extraterrestrial causes, scoped only on large-body impacts
(overall excluding the interference of additional agents,
such as supernova explosions or solar/orbital changes);
(2) terrestrial (= Earthly) volcanic causes, which constitute
the main object of the discussion; and
(3) terrestrial nonvolcanic causes, believed to be behind cli-
mate and sea-level changes (such as paleogeographic/
paleoceanographic turning points, albedo effects, etc.),
as highlighted especially in older papers (e.g., Brooks
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 19
[1949] listed 12 supposed controls of climate variations
in his Appendix 2), and antagonistic biotic interactions
(Newell, 1963, 1972; McGhee, 1996; Vermeij, 2004;
Erwin, 2014; see review in Benton, 1990). As maintained
extremely by Simpson (1970, p. 89), the major extinction
episodes “may indeed be coincidental.”
In fact, I will limit my brief discussion to the lesser-known
elements of volcanogenic stress processes. An extremely broad
meaning of volcanism as an ultimate trigger of biosphere turn-
overs is used herein, encompassing not only multiple effects of
magmatic activity, but also associated/source tectonic phenom-
ena assumed for the crisis interval (see, e.g., Averbuch et al.,
2005; Arens and West, 2008). Two pairs of opposing thermal and
eustatic factors, comprehensively propounded in popular text-
books by Walliser (1996), Hallam and Wignall (1997), and Hal-
lam (2004), are reviewed below.
Furthermore, the particularity of oceanic large igneous prov-
inces is better understood (Ernst and Youbi, 2017), mostly thanks
to a study of mid-Cretaceous marine ecosystems affected vitally
by eruptive pulses during the emplacement of immense oceanic
plateaus (Erba et al., 2015). Excess CO2 resulted in severe cli-
mate shifts (from super-greenhouse to prolonged cooling inter-
ludes, mostly through intensified biological pump and/or silicate
weathering; see below) and oceanographic perturbations, that
led primarily to the Aptian biocalcification crisis. This overall
noncatastrophic event was causally linked with episodic ocean
acidification, enhanced by trace-metal incursions and fertiliza-
tion pulses, as well as by global anoxia. The detrimental climate
response was induced in very different ways by massive erup-
tions in low as compared to high latitudes; however, acidification
stress was common in marine carbonate systems regardless of
geographic setting.
Diverse Volcanic Activity versus the Press-Pulse Theory of
Mass Extinctions
As shown for the most radical end-Permian ecosystem col-
lapse (Wignall, 2016), a wide spectrum of killing factors related
to volcanic activity, augmented by nonvolcanic factors, has oper-
ated within totally different time scales; therefore, a three-step
temporal scenario is supposed (Fig. 11; Racki and Wignall,
2005). Simultaneously, the general press-pulse theory of the
mass extinction was proposed by Arens and West (2008, p. 456),
who explained in the causal context that,
Figure 11. Three-order temporal-causal fabric for the Permian–Triassic mass extinction, referred to as the “press-pulse
model” of Arens and West (2008; modified from fig. 5 of Racki and Wignall, 2005; see Burgess et al., 2017). P— Permian;
Tr—Triassic.
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20 G. Racki
Continental flood volcanism and impact share important ecological
features with other proposed extinction mechanisms. Impacts, like
marine anoxic incursions, are pulse disturbances that are sudden and
catastrophic, and cause extensive mortality. Volcanism, like climate
and sea level change, is a press disturbance that alters community
composition by placing multigenerational stress on ecosystems. We
propose that the coincidence of press and pulse events, not merely
volcanism and impact, is required to produce the greatest episodes of
dying in [the] Phanerozoic.
Arens and West (2008) therefore stressed that “the global
extinction power of flood basalts comes not from the eruptions
themselves, but from secondary effects,” such as climate change,
carbon cycle disruption, and sea-level fluctuations when the large
igneous province is paired with tectonism. Thus, volcanism-
generated “press disturbances need not kill outright, but can
instead exert extinction power through curtailed reproduction,
lost habitat, geographic range contraction, and the long-term
decline of population size” (p. 464).
Flood basalt provinces are long-lasting phenomena in
relation to episodes of mass extinction. The delayed ecosys-
tem response owing to cumulative stress is demonstrated by
the fact that large igneous province emplacement precedes
the main ecosystem collapse in short-lived cascades of global
ecosystem collapse (Burgess et al., 2017), compared with the
“lag-time” model of McGhee (2005). The press-pulse extinc-
tion scenario, however, may include sole volcanic activity as a
driver of both press and pulse disturbances, determined mainly
by the frequency, composition, style, and magnitude of erup-
tive activity (see below). Actually, a highly discontinuous pul-
sated pattern on “embedded time scales” characterizes plume-
generated large igneous province volcanism, on the diversity of
orders from 10 m.y. and 1 m.y. to 100 k.y. and 10 yr (Courtillot
and Fluteau, 2014), and the poorly known recurrence intervals
determine an insufficiently known environmental impact of
effusive lava flows (Self et al., 2014; Ernst and Youbi, 2017).
Modeled dynamics of flood basalt eruptions and their gaseous
emissions are therefore an inherent prerequisite for understand-
ing their environmental impact (Black and Manga, 2017; Black
et al., 2018; McKenzie and Jiang, 2019). The global pulse-type
response can be attributed to multiple paroxysms in a suffi-
ciently short period of time, rather than individual supererup-
tions (Schmidt et al., 2015, 2016; Black et al., 2018; Fendley et
al., 2019; Lee and Dee, 2019; see below).
In this context, a crucial puzzle includes carbonatite alka-
line magmatism, which is usually associated with large igneous
provinces (Ernst et al., 2019), owing to the extraordinarily high
fluid-bearing capacity of their very low-viscosity primary melts.
Therefore, the tremendous potential of rapid eruptions to expel
large volumes of CO2 and SO2 was believed to be the key driver
of volcanic catastrophes by Ray and Pande (1999; compare Iso-
zaki, 2007). In the related “Verneshot model” of a mega-kim-
berlite diatremic volcanism, Phipps Morgan et al. (2004, p. 279)
considered that gas-driven cratonic-lithospheric explosions were
“catastrophically adding to already strong environmental stresses
induced by any ongoing ‘normal’ flood basalt volcanism.”
Similarly, the critical role of the initial emplacement pulse
of the extensive Siberian Traps sill intrusions, against the back-
ground of flood lava eruptions, has recently been suggested by
Burgess et al. (2017) for the end-Permian biosphere collapse (see
also Black et al., 2018). Black and Manga (2017, p. 138) claimed
that “if Siberian Traps magmas staged within carbon-rich upper
crustal rocks, they could have released 1019–1020 g CO2 (one to
two orders of magnitude greater than the total mass of CO2 in
the present-day atmosphere) within ~104 yr.” Also in the case of
the Frasnian–Famennian biotic crisis, the currently dated large
igneous province magmatism has been proven to be a rather
prolonged and pulsatory precrisis stimulus; therefore, as a sud-
den enhancement of the harmful effects of large igneous prov-
inces, an unusual arc-volcanism burst and/or unique carbonatite/
kimberlite-like activity are potential immediate causes of the
major collapse of a carbonate factory (Racki, 2020b; compare
Isozaki, 2007).
Climate Warming
The volcanogenic runaway greenhouse, promoted by inter-
mittent excess CO2, is the most commonly accepted and well-
proven attribute of the recent mass extinction paradigm, espe-
cially in combination with oceanic stagnation and the resulting
oxygen depletion (as well as with extremely deleterious H2S
release in the final stage, i.e., the Medea scenario of Ward, 2009;
see Knoll, 2013; Schmidt et al., 2015; Ernst and Youbi, 2017;
Large, 2020). A rapid warming of ~10 °C and lethally hot tem-
peratures, possibly up to 40 °C, have been proven by diverse
geochemical proxies (such as oxygen isotope systematics in con-
odont apatite), especially during the end-Permian hyperthermal
crisis (Sun et al., 2012; Chen et al., 2016; Cao et al., 2019). Its
acceptance marks the conceptual victory of the climatic scenario
proposed by Högbom and Arrhenius. In addition, supplemen-
tary factors positively influencing the global thermal state (Figs.
10–12) include the following:
(1) outgassing due to thermal destabilization of the host-rock
massif by intruding lava from contact aureoles—as dis-
cussed by Ganino and Arndt (2009), Aarnes et al. (2011),
Jones et al. (2016), and Black and Gibson (2019), this is
an essential factor in predicting the extinction risk in the
case of volcanism (see below);
(2) gas hydrate dissociation and methane expulsion (the “clath-
rate gun” scenario; see e.g., Heydari and Hassanzadeh,
2003; Racki and Wignall, 2005), particularly from high-
latitude reservoirs, at least partly supported by actualistic
data (Shakhova et al., 2017; but see summary of recently
debatable arguments in Bond and Grasby, 2017); and
(3) the geothermal influence of mantle plume activity (e.g.,
for Emeishan magmatism, Zhu et al., 2018), which is
essentially poorly known in submarine settings (see
Racki and Wignall, 2005; compare, e.g., thermoeustasy
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 21
in Boulila et al., 2011). The dynamic changes are a chal-
lenge for numerical simulations, especially in terms of
estimating the response of oceanic circulation to massive
submarine extrusions (see Fig. 9B).
Climate Cooling
Recently, Wunderlich and Mitchell (2017) statistically con-
firmed predominant cooling anomalies in the tropics following
most, but not all, volcanic explosive events. It must be noted,
however, that volcanic control of climate change, disputed his-
torically at length (see above), remains a debatable issue. Sul-
furic acid aerosol and dust impacts are usually considered to be
extremely brief climatic responses on a geological time scale
(see reviews in Cronin, 2010; Self et al., 2014; Schmidt et al.,
2015; Bond and Grasby, 2017; Ernst and Youbi, 2017). There-
fore, the killing potential of the largest supervolcano explosions
is accepted to be limited (after Erwin and Vogel, 1992), although
some doubts concerning Late Ordovician pyroclastic mega-
eruptions were presented recently by Buggisch et al. (2010). On
other hand, however, the correlation between zircon age spectra
and major climate changes is convincing evidence that the explo-
sive arc magmatism was a key driver influencing the climate
on long time scales (Kump, 2016; McKenzie and Jiang, 2019),
exemplified by late Paleozoic ice age (Soreghan et al., 2019).
The dynamic volcanism-driven scenario is currently being
created for rapidly changing climatic states (see Schmidt et al.,
2015; McKenzie and Jiang, 2019). Black et al. (2018, p. 949)
concluded: “sulfur and carbon emissions from the Siberian Traps
combined to generate systemic swings in temperature, ocean
circulation and hydrology within a longer-term trend towards a
greenhouse world in the Early Triassic.” Fendley et al. (2019,
p. 9), combining refined terrestrial Cretaceous–Tertiary mercury
signatures and geochemical box models, estimated precisely that
Figure 12. Volcanism-related cause-and-effect interplaying links that can finally lead both to (1) an augmented long-
lasting greenhouse stimulus, as well as (2) an intervening/ending climate cooling interlude/trend due to an antigreenhouse
effect, against the anticipated sea-level changes (?amplified by Milankovitch cyclicity modulation; Boulila et al., 2011).
The interferences are highlighted as an attribute of the general model of volcanic summer (Fig. 10; compare to the auto-
cyclic climatic models of Fischer and Arthur, 1977, and Buggisch, 1991; see also Ruddiman, 2008; Kidder and Worsley,
2010); arrow thicknesses reflect the assumed influence scale.
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22 G. Racki
the mercury peaks correspond to eruptions with magma output fluxes of
40–240 km3/a, which lasted 100–500 years, and occurred at least every
10,000yr…. Deccan eruptions of the estimated size are hypothesized to
have released enough SO2 to cause significant (~1–6°C) cooling for their
duration… if the cooler periods occurred as hypothesized, the repeated sig-
nificant climatic perturbations within 50 ka of the Cretaceous-Paleogene
boundary may have contributed to ecological change.
Schmidt et al. (2016, p. 77) similarly calculated that
a decadal-mean reduction in global surface temperature of 4.5 °C,
which would recover within 50 years after an eruption ceased unless
climate feedbacks were very different in deep-time climates. We con-
clude that magmatic sulphur from flood basalt eruptions would have
caused a biotic crisis only if eruption frequencies and lava discharge
rates had been high and sustained for several centuries at a time.
Climate shifts from cooling to warming, but driven by explo-
sive volcanism (e.g., via competing CO2 degassing vs. ash albedo
effect), have recently been discussed by Lee and Dee (2019,
p. 688), who came to the conclusion that:
It may be possible for individual eruptions to perturb the carbon
cycle on timescales of 1–10 k.y. … These effects would be mani-
fested as short-term cooling events superimposed upon on an other-
wise warmer baseline.
Nevertheless, the missing link includes two additional inter-
actions augmenting the antigreenhouse effect (Fig. 12): (1) vol-
canogenic oceanic fertilization and increased primary produc-
tion, leading to intensification of biological pump, and (2) the
rapid chemical weathering rate of freshly erupted or tectonically
lifted and exhumed basaltic series, recapitulated by Hartmann et
al. (2013, p. 117) as “pumping CO2 into mafic and ultramafic
rock formations to increase chemical weathering rates and the
subsequent carbonation of minerals” (weathering or chemical
pump; for a review, see Ernst and Youbi, 2017; Fig. 12). In addi-
tion, extensive continental uplift is recalled for the Eovariscan
setting of the prolonged stepwise Frasnian-Famennian biodi-
versity crisis, as a stimulus of intensive silicate weathering and
nutrient input to confined marine basins (Averbuch et al., 2005;
Large, 2020). The marine organic productivity seems to be
mostly P-controlled in the key crisis intervals (see discussion in
Saltzman, 2005), even if the weathering/runoff stimulus could be
ineffective in nitrogen-limited oceanic settings.
In the context of a chemical pump, Macdonald et al. (2019,
p. 1) emphasized the following:
On multimillion-year time scales, Earth has experienced warm ice-
free and cold glacial climates, but it is unknown whether transitions
between these background climate states were the result of changes in
carbon dioxide sources or sinks. Low-latitude arc-continent collisions
are hypothesized to drive cooling by exhuming and eroding mafic and
ultramafic rocks in the warm, wet tropics, thereby increasing Earth’s
potential to sequester carbon through chemical weathering… Earth’s
climate state is set primarily by global weatherability, which changes
with the latitudinal distribution of arc-continent collisions.
In fact, changing area of weatherable basalt provinces in the
humid equatorial belt was shown by Kent and Muttoni (2013) to
be a dominant control on the atmospheric CO2 content in the Late
Cretaceous and Cenozoic (see also Kidder and Worsley, 2010, and
Hartmann et al., 2013). Trap weathering feedback toward severe
CO2 drawdown has been proposed for the end-Permian Siberian
igneous province (e.g., Dessert et al., 2003) and mid-Cretaceous
global events (Blättler et al., 2011; Erba et al., 2015), and as a
trigger for Neoproterozoic snowball Earth (Cox et al., 2016). As
demonstrated by wavelet analysis (Johansson et al., 2018), there
is a high correlation between periods with a larger large igneous
province area in the humid belt and global cooling, but a causal
relationship was proven for only three large igneous provinces,
including the Deccan Traps. That is why Black and Gibson (2019,
p. 323) asked (in the context of press-type disturbances): “On the
105–106 year timescales of silicate weathering, does large igneous
province emplacement lead to prolonged warming, transient warm-
ing followed by cooling as silicate weathering proceeds, negligible
climate change, or predominant cooling?”
With regard to bioproductivity feedback, increasing amounts
of actualistic data confirm the effectiveness of volcanic ash stim-
ulation. In recent years, the notable fertilizing potential of vol-
canogenic nutrients such as P, Si, N, and Fe for phytoplankton
was proven by Duggen et al. (2010), who concluded that iron
fertilization with volcanic ash can play a major role in global cli-
mate change. For example, as experimentally shown by Zhang et
al. (2017), volcanic ash positively affected the abundance of het-
erotrophic bacterioplankton; this was followed by phytoplank-
ton bloom, including diatoms and other eukaryotes, in the low-
nutrient and low-chlorophyll western Pacific Ocean. Adams et
al. (2010, p. 201) postulated another biogeochemical cascading
effect for the Cretaceous anoxic events:
Sulphate levels increased rapidly from relatively low background lev-
els at the onset of the event, most likely from the release of sulphur by
massive volcanism, and fell during the anoxic event. We infer that the
input of sulphate facilitated increased carbon remineralization.
Thus, it is implied that atmospheric CO2 levels have been
lowered by the massive volcanogenic stimulus of oceanic
bioproductivity, which has also changed the nutrient budget in
the photic zone and therefore influenced overall biogeochemi-
cal marine cycling. This as-yet little-known link may explain
the selective survival and even prosperity of biosiliceous com-
munities in high-stress habitats resulting from biodiversity cri-
ses (Racki, 1999). Moreover, metal-rich fluid discharge from
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 23
hydrothermal vent fields, lava-seawater interactions, and biologi-
cally degraded trap basalts can be offered as additional sources
of limiting elements, especially for neighboring seas (Racki and
Wignall, 2005, p. 282; Erba et al., 2015). Last, Emsbo (2017)
emphasized a diverse effect of sedex-type brine expulsions, and
this factor remains an important matter to modeling studies of the
mantle-hydrosphere chemical balance.
In the fossil record, the climatic effect of an immense biolog-
ical pump was suggested by Oelofsen (1978), Buggisch (1991),
Averbuch et al. (2005), and Winter (2015), among others, and a
rapid return to normal climate mode following extreme warmth
at the Paleocene-Eocene transition interval was proposed (Bains
et al., 2000). The efficacy of various volcanogenic fertilization
processes was also recognized by Erba et al. (2015), in the case
of Cretaceous oceanic plateaus, as ultimately leading to cooling
episodes. Furthermore, the effect on climate of iron fertilization
due to abundant falls of silicic volcanic ash, leading, during the
Eocene, to the Cenozoic icehouse, was notably discussed by
Cather et al. (2009). The proposed icehouse–silicic large igne-
ous province hypothesis is thought to be a general causal link
between most Phanerozoic cool-climate episodes and coeval
major explosive activity in silicic volcanic domains (Fig. 13; see
also Ernst and Youbi, 2017).
All the volcanism-related antigreenhouse feedbacks pre-
sented here may be assumed to have been an operative factor
specifically in the major Paleozoic biodiversity crises in the
Late Ordovician and at the Frasnian-Famennian and Devonian-
Carboniferous boundaries, marked by more or less prolonged
cooling/glaciation events in an overall greenhouse setting (see
Kidder and Worsley, 2010). Swanson-Hysell and Macdonald
(2017) considered the tropical weathering of the Taconian oro-
gen as the causative agent of the Ordovician icehouse interlude,
while Jones et al. (2017) and Landing (2018) preferred higher
albedo, because of the increase in Gondwanan ice caps. These
uncompetitive processes were probably also important in several
Silurian second-order biotic events related to the short-lived cold
episodes proved by oxygen isotopes (Calner, 2008; Fig. 13).
Regression
The direct promotion of falling sea levels by plume magma-
tism was assumed by Vogt (1972, p. 342). He presumed emergence
and sea shallowing to be associated in many regions with “regional
topographic bulges” reflecting “the existence of hot, low density
regions in the asthenosphere, derived from plume convection.”
Epeirogenic doming by active plumes has been clearly proven
(e.g., Saunders et al., 2007), but regression due to epeirogenic uplift
should in some regions be compensated by rising sea levels in other,
more tectonically stabilized, domains (Ernst and Youbi, 2017; see
the review in Şengör, 2003). In addition to the long-term (in m.y.)
tectonoeustasy, controlled generally by spreading rate (Figs. 8–9;
e.g., Miller et al., 2005), accompanying mechanisms of tectonically
induced short-term sea-level fluctuations, unconnected to variations
in glacial ice volume, were unsuccessfully proposed (assumed as of
regional scale only; see Boulila et al., 2011). This is well demon-
strated by the model of stress-induced changes in the lithospheric
plate density by Cathles and Hallam (1991), paired with exten-
sion and rifting phenomena (see Racki [1998] for the Frasnian–
Famennian mass extinction).
Therefore, sea-level falls on a global scale, as exposed in for-
mer extinction models (Moore, 1954; Newell, 1963, 1972), may be
more easily explained by a glacioeustatic response to the volcani-
cally promoted climatic change to an icehouse interlude (see also
aquifer-eustasy concept in Sames et al., 2019). Oscillating polar
ice sheets, modulated primarily by orbital forcing, were likely
present also in a greenhouse world, dominating in the Phanerozoic
(see discussion in Miller et al., 2005; Boulila et al., 2011; Fig. 12).
Transgression/Anoxia
It has been generally accepted for some time that high
spreading rates and the resulting volcanism, combined with col-
liding plates, have led to rising sea levels (as predicted in pulsa-
tion tectonics and superplume models; Figs. 8–9; see also Ruddi-
man, 2008). It has been also recently revealed that emplacements
of oceanic large igneous provinces generate initially abrupt trans-
gressions (60 m/m.y.; Ernst and Youbi, 2017). Therefore, this
agent is conceptually joined with anoxia in a “lazily- circulating”
ocean, acidification, and hypercapnia in the fashionable scenario
(Figs. 10–11; see also Kidder and Worsley, 2010). In fact, this is
an answer to the question originated by Cuvier’s primary cata-
strophic paradigm, as addressed precisely by McGhee (1996):
Why do evidently only some transgressions contribute disas-
trously to the biodiversity crises?
KILLING POTENTIAL OF VOLCANIC TRIGGER
It is invariably a common practice in paleobiological analy-
ses to consider macroevolutionary trends in terms of observed
biodiversity and ecology changes, as opposed to estimating
global stress forced by meteorite impacts and volcanic eruptions
proportional to their presumed size and energy (a traditional “kill
curve” idea; see Racki, 2012). This method was recently applied
in a synoptic review by Condamine et al. (2013), and continued
in analysis of the Mesozoic echinoderm evolution by Gorzelak
et al. (2015). In the latter higher-resolution survey, no significant
links were found between documented biodiversity variation and
supposed extrinsic catastrophic events (but see Rampino, 2019,
for a more general review).
Nevertheless, as pointed out already by Arthur and Barnes
(2006), such a simplified approach is misleading, and the awaited
correlation is not such a simple matter. In order to reliably discuss
the killing potential of volcanic and/or impact events in a more
robust fashion, their location and timing, along with all vulnera-
bility factors, especially target/host geology and paleogeographic
setting in the context of possible volatile fluxes, should be thor-
oughly considered (Fig. 14; for impact cratering, see Kieffer and
Simonds, 1980; Walkden and Parker, 2008; Racki, 2012).
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24 G. Racki
Figure 13. Timing and volume of major silicic volcanic provinces in relation to Phanerozoic cooling times as a factual set-
ting for the silicic large igneous province hypothesis (after Cather et al., 2009, fig. 4). The silicic volcanic provinces, with
documented volumes >105 km3 (red), are modified from Bryan (2007). Numbers in white boxes are given for minimum
ignimbrite-type fluxes in millions of cubic kilometers (Bryan, 2007); major explosive episodes with uncertain volumes are
denoted by question marks. Average tropical temperature anomalies (black line) have been detrended and smoothed using a
50 m.y. window stepped at 10 m.y. increments (Veizer et al., 2000). Ord.—Ordovician; Sil.—Silurian; Ne.—Neogene.
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Volcanism as a prime cause of mass extinctions: Retrospectives and perspectives 25
Thus, for example, the immense oceanic effusive series was
responsible only for moderate biodiversity losses (mostly owing
to biocalcification collapse), because the intrusions took place in
the volatile-free substratum of a basaltic floor. At least a three-
step ranking of this calamitous degassing risk is therefore evi-
dent: crystalline rocks, siliciclastic rocks, and, the most damag-
ing, carbonate/evaporite rocks (especially those rich in organic
matter and coal; Ganino and Arndt, 2009; Aarnes et al., 2011;
Schmidt et al., 2015; Jones et al., 2016; Ernst and Youbi, 2017;
Heimdal et al., 2019). Bituminous shale is a type of rock with
the highest degassing potential, and contact metamorphism of
organic-rich strata mainly leads to the release of methane, while
heating of evaporites causes generation of a variety of carbon-
bearing, sulfurous, and halocarbon gases (Aarnes et al., 2011;
Black and Manga, 2017; Svensen et al., 2019).
The eruptive dynamics of large igneous provinces are
decidedly associated with their impact on the environment
(Black and Manga, 2017), but other major constraining fac-
tors include, among others, the style of magmatic emplacement
(deep-located intrusion vs. near-surface eruption), plume-litho-
sphere interaction (delivery of recycled lithospheric volatiles),
mantle versus crustal carbon sources, and evolving magmatic
plumbing systems, modeled finally in a new conceptual frame-
work by Ernst et al. (2019; see also Svensen et al., 2018). In
particular, Burgess et al. (2017, p. 1) concluded that “large igne-
ous provinces characterized by sill-complex formation are more
likely to trigger mass extinction than their flood basalt- and/or
dike-dominated counterparts.”
In addition, negative carbon isotope excursions are now
often implied as the cumulative effect of direct (volcanic) and
indirect (thermogenic) degassing, with the latter process likely
having major control (Schobben et al., 2019; see also Black and
Manga, 2017). That is why the recognition of the hydraulic sys-
tem, contact halo, and degassing pipes is the key to understand-
ing the phenomena associated with the generation and release of
thermogenic gases on a short time scale (~250–2500 yr; Aarnes
et al., 2011).
CONCLUDING REMARKS
(1) In recent models of Earth-system crises, the mantle
plume–generated pulsed release of large amounts of
CO2 transformed Earth’s atmosphere, leading to an
excessive greenhouse effect, combined with slowed
oceanic circulation, oxygen deficiency, and alleged
seawater acidification recorded in a calcification cri-
sis (Figs. 10–11). In a historical context, however, the
path to this neocatastrophic scenario, traced by way of
ever-more convincing proofs (via mercury anomalies in
the recent years; Clapham and Renne, 2019), became
convoluted for many objective (such as the language
barrier and the ineffective dispersal of scientific results)
and notional-personal reasons (see examples in Hallam,
1989; Maher, 1998).
(2) This conceptual route, from the late eighteenth cen-
tury to the revolutionary 1980s, was determined princi-
pally by the rise and fall of the orthodox nonprogressive
( steady-state) paradigm of the Lyellian uniformitarian,
and pioneered largely in continental Europe (see also
Greene, 1982; Laudan, 1987; Şengör, 2003; Rudwick,
2008; Racki, 2014). Several cases of “ahead-of-its-
time” premature concepts are notable (e.g., the hypo-
theses of Högbom-Arrhenius and Usov-Pavlov-Sobolev;
Table 1). The peripheral notions could be unconsciously
rediscovered and experience resurgence, however, in the
mainstream science in a modified paradigmatic frame-
work (Maher, 1998). Of overall significance, progres-
sive actualistic-catastrophic and rare event (“punctuated
Figure 14. Major factors that control kill poten-
tial and extinction risk in biotic crises intervals,
representing what, how, where, and when Earth
was affected by volcanic cataclysms (adapted
from Racki, 2012, fig. 7). Emphasis is placed on
underestimated vulnerability variables reflecting
a given catastrophe site (global positioning) and
its timing (moment in biosphere history; based, in
part, on Walkden and Parker, 2008, fig. 5); arrow
thicknesses reflect the predicted influence scale.
LIP—large igneous province.
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26 G. Racki
equilibrium”) approaches, more or less clearly formu-
lated by Laplace, Cuvier, Scrope, and Élie de Beaumont
before the 1830s, were greatly successfully revitalized
150 yr later by Newell (1963), Ager (1973, 1993) and
Alvarez et al. (1980), subsequent to the theory of Gre-
tener (1967; see Hooykaas, 1970; Hsü, 1989; Kolchinsky,
2002; Palmer, 2003; Şengör, 2003; Racki, 2015).
(3) The main cognitive steps toward a volcanic super-
greenhouse scenario included such key conclusions as
the following:
(a) Volcanic eruptions are a natural process, recording
heat venting from a centrally placed burning core,
itself a relic of an initial incandescent state from the
nebular setting.
(b) Cataclysmic phenomena were far more intense in
the geologic past, with dominating nonactualistic
fissure-type effusive activity in intraplate settings
recorded in vast trap successions occurring in oro-
genic and nonorogenic time intervals.
(c) Volcanogenic gaseous emanations, dominated by car-
bon dioxide and water vapor, have a strong impact
on the global climate toward the greenhouse mode.
(d) This severe effect on environment and life is aug-
mented by several immanent stress interactions
(Fig. 10), especially when associated with effective
nonvolcanic factors (e.g., astronomic and/or oceano-
graphic agents in the case of episodic cooling inter-
ruptions; Fig. 12).
(4) In order to understand the extinction risk related to par-
ticular volcanic events, all vulnerability agents control-
ling the calamitous thermogenic outgassing, especially
host substratum features and magma plumbing system,
should be taken into account in future macroevolution-
ary analyses (Fig. 14). Progress in the quantification and
modeling of short-lasting climate changes and volca-
nogenic feedbacks is necessary to understand the com-
plexity of carbon cycle disturbances and the intermittent
cumulative deterioration of global ecosystems (Burton et
al., 2013). Progress is noticeable mainly in the case of
the Siberian large igneous province (Black and Manga,
2017; Black et al., 2018), but controversial eruption sce-
narios are still emerging in the case of the Deccan Traps
(Voosen, 2019; see also Schmidt et al., 2016; Fendley et
al., 2019). Rapidly growing simulation data “will force us
to rethink how planetary systems operate” (Lee and Dee,
2019, p. 688).
(5) In general, diverse volcanic feedbacks can elucidate all
other major environmental controls, such as regressive
versus transgressive sea-level changes and cooling versus
warming climate responses. It must be noted that some
other elusive model elements still await more rigorous
determination in numerical terms toward a refined ver-
sion of “holistic” (tectono)volcanic models. Challenges
include, among others, the specifics of submarine igne-
ous processes (see model in Jones et al., 2019), climatic
impacts of sulfur- and halogen-enriched volatiles, killing
potential of large igneous province–related carbonatites
and kimberlites, the geothermal effect of intrusions in ter-
restrial and marine domains, their fertilization prospects,
and a feedback combination of volcanic and nonvolcanic
(e.g., orbital forcing) stimuli. It has been hypothesized
that different variations of volcanism could act as press
and pulse perturbations in the course of a stepwise bio-
crisis, promoted by large igneous provinces and carbon-
atite/kimberlite-like and/or arc magmatism outbursts,
respectively (see the Frasnian-Famennian crisis example
in Racki, 2020b). Likewise, it has been suggested that
extensive sill intrusions played a crucial catastrophic role,
and, beyond the Siberian Traps, arc volcanism probably
also played a key role in the end-Permian mass extinc-
tion (Chen and Xu, 2019). Of course, the combination of
interrelationships and feedbacks was certainly specific to
each of the mass extinctions.
(6) Notwithstanding the particularity of each major biodiver-
sity crisis in the Phanerozoic (Racki, 2020a), the volcanic
calamity is considered to be the principal serial killer in the
conceptual framework of the press-pulse model (Fig. 11),
and as the basic element of the neocatastrophic geology of
the twenty-first century (compare Rampino, 2017).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I gratefully acknowledge the two reviewers, Yadong Sun and
Marco Romano, for their constructive criticism and valuable
suggestions to improve my manuscript, as well as Richard Ernst
for his useful comments. This research was funded in part by the
National Science Centre–Poland (MAESTRO grant 2013/08/A/
ST10/00717 to Racki).
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Manuscript accepted by the society 9 septeMber 2019
Manuscript published online 5 February 2020
Printed in the USA
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