An asteroid more than five miles wide smashed into the Earth at 70,000 miles per hour 66 million years ago. That unimaginably violent explosion wiped-out the dinosaurs and most life on Earth.

A new report from scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) discovered evidence a major volcanic eruption began just before the asteroid impact and might have contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

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The team dated rocks from the Deccan Traps, an Indian region that preserves remnants of one of the largest volcanic eruptions on Earth. Their analysis of the rocks revealed the eruption began 250,000 years before the asteroid strike and continued for 500,000 years after the giant impact.

This stupendous eruption spewed forth 1.5 million square kilometers of lava.

Scientists believe long-lasting volcanism may have released dangerous levels of volatile chemicals into the air that later poisoned the atmosphere and oceans.

They collected more than 50 rock samples from the region representing the largest pulse of volcanism. Fortunately, samples from both the bottom and top of this volcanic layer contained zircon, allowing the team to pinpoint the beginning and end of the Deccan Traps' eruptions.

"If models of volatile release are correct, we're talking about something similar to what's happening today: lots of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere very rapidly", said Michael Eddy, a graduate student in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS).

"Ultimately what that can do is lead to ocean acidification, killing a significant portion of plankton - the base of the food chain. If you wipe them out, then you'd have catastrophic effects".

This research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation. The report was published in the online edition of the journal, Science Express.

Tags dinosaur extinction, animal extinction, Volcanism, animal extinction, Dinosaur era, Deccan Traps, asteroid, volcanic eruption