By DINO GIANNANDREA
Staff Writer
Everybody knows about the long reign of the dinosaurs and their grand story of their mass extinction 66 million years ago. But, new evidence released today shows signs of a major extinction that took place 233 million years ago, way before the dinosaurs. The craziest part is that scientists have only now discovered this mass extinction. This extinction took place in what is called the Carnian Pluvial Episode where dinosaurs were a rarity and a novelty to Earth. During this time period, climate changed abruptly which was thought to be caused by copious volcanic activity. These eruptions which caused the vast emission of greenhouse gases, caused severe global warming which in turn, wiped out many of the Earth’s species and paved a new path for the dinosaurs to inhabit the planet with these new conditions.