'Stretching' of the continents 56 million years drove global warming, study finds - Daily Mail

Stretching of the continents 56 million years ago is likely to have caused one of the most extreme episodes of global warming in Earth's history, new research suggests. .

During this time, the planet experienced an increase in temperature of 5-8°C (9-14°F), culminating in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which lasted about 170,000 years.

Scientists studied the effects of global tectonic forces and volcanic eruptions during the period of environmental change almost 60 million years ago. .

'Stretching' of the continents 56 million years ago is likely to have caused one of the most extreme episodes of global warming in Earth's history, new research suggests.

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a global warming event that occurred about 56 million years ago.

'It's generally agreed that a sudden and massive release of the greenhouse gas, carbon, from the Earth's interior must have driven this event, yet the scale and pace of warming is very hard to explain by conventional volcanic processes.'.

The scientists found evidence from rock drilled from the seafloor for a widespread episode volcanic activity lasting 200,000 years, which coincided with the PETM.

Using archives of rock drilled beneath the seafloor near the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, the team found evidence of an abrupt and widespread episode of volcanic activity across the North Atlantic Ocean that lasted just over 200,000 years, strikingly similar to the duration of the PETM

The volcanism occurred as the North Atlantic region was in the final stages of rifting, or breaking apart, in some ways similar to the geological processes occurring today in the East African Rift Valley, pictured

The intense volcanic activity occurred just as the continental landmass that united Greenland and Europe was most intensely stretched by plate tectonic forces. 

Prior to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) - which occurred around 55 million years ago - non-avian dinosaurs had been extinct for around ten million years