Emei Mountain.

By Du Guodong

US-based famous scientific journal Science has revealed the greatest global wipeout on earth in history was closely linked with the volcano eruption in Emei Mountain in Southwest China 260 million years ago.

In a finding published Friday, professor and lead author of the paper, Paul Wignall, said that the eruption in Emei Mountain caused huge ecological damage causing mass extinction of different life forms.

The volcanic eruptions unleashed about half a million cubic kilometers of lava, covering an area five times the size of Wales and triggering global annihilation of marine life.

The Emei Mountain was at that time a shallow sea and the upsurge of hot lava would have produced a massive cloud formation spreading around the world, cooling the planet and producing acid rain, said scientists.

In their view, this volcano destroyed as many as 90 percent of maritime life and 70 percent of species on land.

The fossilized rock shows mass extinction of different life forms, clearly linking the onset of the eruption with an environmental catastrophe.

As today the lava appears as a distinctive layer of igneous rock containing easily datable fossilized marine life, the scientists were able to pinpoint the timing of the blast.

“When fast-flowing, low-viscosity magma meets shallow sea it’s like throwing water into a chip pan – there’s a spectacular explosion producing gigantic clouds of steam,” said Wignall, who is a paleontologist at the University of Leeds.

For a long time, the assumption of mass extinction caused by volcano eruption was challenged for the lack of evidence but now the findings of the scientists provide a clue for further analysis and research.

This research was undertaken by the UK-based University of Leeds in collaboration with the Chinese University of Geosciences in Wuhan and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, UK.