Scientists in Nanjing have unearthed fresh evidence in support of the theory suggesting the world’s largest Extinction Level Event (ELE; the one that killed all the dinosaurs) was not in fact the result of a massive meteor impact.
南京的科学家们发现了支持这一理论的新证据，表明世界上最大的灭绝级事件（ELE；杀死所有恐龙的事件）实际上并不是大规模流星撞击的结果。
Latest research now coming out of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology instead puts the cause of the mass extinction as the volcanic activity that formed the Deccan Traps in India.
南京地质古生物研究所的最新研究表明，大规模灭绝的原因是形成印度德干地盾的火山活动。
Until now, the bulk of the scientific community has largely thought while that activity certainly released climate-changing amounts of sulphuric dioxide into the atmosphere, it was the impact from a 10-kilometre-wide asteroid that finished off 75 percent of the world’s plant and animal species.
到目前为止，大多数科学界人士大多认为，虽然这一活动确实向大气中释放了导致气候变化的二氧化硫，但正是一颗 10 公里宽的小行星的撞击导致了世界上 75% 的动植物物种灭绝。
But now they need to listen to Nanjing’s scientists, who claim the extinction happened 150,000-300,000 years before the asteroid struck Earth.
但现在他们需要听听南京科学家的说法，他们声称灭绝发生在小行星撞击地球之前 15 万到 30 万年。
Based on high-precision biostratigraphy, paleoecology and other geochemistry, the local Chinese Academy of Sciences institution claims to have now found direct evidence of the Deccan Traps link to the extinction.
基于高精度生物地层学、古生态学和其他地球化学，中国科学院当地机构声称现已发现德干地盾与灭绝有关的直接证据。
The local scientists further allege the relevant records in support of the asteroid theory have not been found in the world’s continental basins, reported The Paper on 30 July.
据澎湃新闻7月30日报道，当地科学家进一步声称，在全球大陆盆地中尚未发现支持小行星理论的相关记录。
Either way, it was sunlight-blocking dust clouds that killed much of Earth’s life forms. In the volcano theory, sulfurous volcanic gases were responsible, leading to a two-degree-Celsius drop in temperatures planet wide. This is hypothesised to have initiated the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) ELE.
不管怎样，正是阻挡阳光的尘埃云杀死了地球上的大部分生命形式。根据火山理论，含硫火山气体是造成全球气温下降两摄氏度的原因。据推测，这引发了白垩纪-古近纪 (K-Pg) ELE。
Supporters of the asteroid theory believe the cause of the Event 66 million years ago to be the dust kicked up by the thunderous impact which gave us the Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico.
小行星理论的支持者认为，6600万年前这一事件的起因是雷鸣般的撞击扬起的尘埃，正是这次撞击在墨西哥尤卡坦半岛形成了希克苏鲁伯陨石坑。
That asteroid left our world with the planetary equivalent of acne; a hole in the Earth some 180-kilometres wide and 20-kilometres deep.
那颗小行星给我们的世界留下了相当于痤疮的行星；地球上有一个宽约180公里、深约20公里的洞。
If the dinosaurs weren’t already dead, they very soon would be. With climate change top of the world agenda today, it cannot help but make us wonder whether history could repeat itself.
如果恐龙还没有死，那么它们很快就会死。随着气候变化成为当今世界议程的首要议题，这不禁让我们怀疑历史是否会重演。