The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions

by Peter Brannen

lava from the Deccan Traps is even found spilling over off the other side of the subcontinent, into the Bay of Bengal, transported there by “the most extensive and voluminous lava flows known on Earth.” These molten rivers carried about 2,400 cubic miles of lava over a distance of perhaps almost 1,000 miles, or roughly the distance between Chicago and Boston. And just as the Mayans unwittingly alighted on the dinosaur-killing crater in Mexico—relying on it for freshwater—on the other side of the world Buddhist monks also found the geology of the End-Cretaceous mass extinction agreeable. Beginning twenty-two centuries ago in the jungles of the Western Ghats, Buddhists carved some two dozen monasteries and five temples into the cliffs of this Deccan basalt. These are the stunning Ajanta Caves, which, like the Ring of Cenotes, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thousands of years ago, monks sat in silent meditation deep inside the rock that might have destroyed the world, a fitting place to contemplate that foundational Buddhist concept