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A ruthless murder was committed! Someone killed the dinosaurs and we have the murderer!
一场残酷的谋杀发生了！有人杀死了恐龙，凶手就在这里！
Witnesses say that an Everest-sized asteroid hit Earth, devastated the planet and caused a mass extinction. A simple, fascinating and convincing explanation. Or is it?
目击者称，一颗珠穆朗玛峰大小的小行星撞击地球，摧毁了地球并导致了大规模灭绝。这是一个简单、迷人且令人信服的解释。真的是这样吗？
In the last few years, new evidence has reinvigorated an older theory pointing at a second suspect.
在过去几年中，新证据重新激发了一项指向第二名嫌疑人的旧理论。
A very slow and liquid asteroid, 1000 times bigger, hitting earth on the opposite side of the planet.
一颗非常缓慢且液态的小行星，比地球大1000倍，撞击地球的另一侧。
Like the true crime channel we are, let's look at the new evidence and tell a different story that could change everything we thought we knew…
就像true crime channel一样，让我们看看新证据，讲述一个可能改变我们所知道的一切的不同故事……
The Last Days of a Kingdom. 66 million years ago, Earth was barely recognizable.
6600万年前，地球几乎无法辨认。
It was the last days of the Cretaceous, one of the hottest periods in Earth's history and much more humid. Lush jungles and woodlands covered much of the planet.
那是白垩纪的最后几天，这是地球历史上最热的时期之一，而且更加潮湿。茂密的丛林和林地覆盖了地球的大部分地区。
Even the polar regions were home to forests of prehistoric pines and ferns.
甚至极地地区也生长着史前松树和蕨类植物。
Amazing ecosystems that were robust enough to survive the many months of darkness during the polar night. Oversized animals were everywhere.
令人惊叹的生态系统足够强大，可以在极夜的数月黑暗中生存下来。超大动物随处可见。
Pterosaurs filled the skies, marine lizards and long necked monsters up to 15 meters swam in the oceans.
翼龙遍布天空，海蜥蜴和长达15米的长颈怪物在海洋中游弋。
And on land, basically everything larger than one meter was a dinosaur – one of the most successful animals ever to walk Earth, dominating the world for more than 150 million years. And then they were murdered.
而在陆地上，基本上所有大于一米的都是恐龙——恐龙是地球上有史以来最成功的动物之一，统治了世界超过1.5亿年。然后它们被屠杀了。
All these majestic creatures vanished in a split-second of geological time. Why? Yes, it is true that at around that time a big asteroid hit Earth.
所有这些雄伟的生物都在地质时间的瞬间消失了。为什么？确实在那个时候一颗巨大的小行星撞击了地球。
But was this actually what killed the dinosaurs? Or did it arrive just in time to get all the blame?
但这真的是杀死恐龙的原因吗？还是它来得正是时候，以至于承担了所有的罪责？
Because according to some recent science, just before the asteroid struck, an ancient nightmare, older than even the dinosaurs, decided to destroy the world. Let's look at how it might have done it.
因为根据最近的一些科学研究，就在小行星撞击地球之前，一个比恐龙还要古老的古老噩梦决定毁灭世界。让我们看看它是如何做到的。
The Beast Slowly Awakens. The ancient continents almost resembled the world of today but not quite.
古代大陆与今天的世界几乎相似，但又不完全一样。
India was still a continent-sized tropical island full of lush rainforests and exotic life, on its way to smash into Asia. But this paradise also hosted something else.
印度仍然是一个大陆大小的热带岛屿，到处都是茂密的雨林和奇异的生命，正朝着亚洲的方向撞击。但这个天堂还承载着其他的东西。
The Deccan Traps - a volcanic region a thousand kilometers wide and about to come to life in a dramatic fashion. The apocalypse began quietly and silently.
德干地盾是个宽一千公里的火山区，即将以一种戏剧性的方式复活。世界末日悄无声息地开始了。
About 800,000 years before the impact, the Deccan Traps began to exhale about 10 million tonnes of CO2 and sulfur dioxide each year.
在撞击发生前约80万年，德干地盾开始每年呼出约1000万吨二氧化碳和二氧化硫。
Which in the grand scheme of things was not that much, so for a long time no one noticed. The problem was, these emissions wouldn't stop.
从宏观上看，这并不算多，所以很长一段时间都没有人注意到。问题是，这些排放不会停止。
For half a million years, they started to dangerously pile up in the atmosphere. About 300,000 years before the asteroid, the Deccan Traps started to vomit lava.
在50万年的时间里，它们开始在大气中危险地堆积。在小行星撞击前约30万年，德干地盾开始喷出熔岩。
This was nothing like a normal eruption – it was a lava flood. Imagine a landscape with volcanos stretching beyond the horizon.
这绝不是一次正常的火山喷发——这是一场熔岩洪流。想象一下，火山绵延至地平线的景象。
They were constantly active, releasing a steady flow of massive amounts of poison and lava, interrupted by much more violent and deadly eruptions.
它们一直处于活跃状态，释放出大量毒液和熔岩，但偶尔会爆发更猛烈、更致命的火山。
The lush paradise of India was the first victim as gigantic clouds spread toxic fumes and poisoned the coastal regions.
巨大的云层散发出有毒烟雾，毒害了沿海地区，印度这个郁郁葱葱的天堂成了第一个受害者。
Clouds of ash darkened the sky as rivers of magma started massive wildfires, eradicating many local ecosystems and paving the continent with dead dinosaurs.
火山灰云遮蔽了天空，岩浆河引发了大规模的野火，摧毁了许多当地的生态系统，让这片大陆上到处都是死去的恐龙。
Still, at this point it all looked like a local catastrophe – one of many that have hit our planet over its billions of years of history.
不过，在这一点上，这一切看起来都像是一场局部灾难——这是我们星球数十亿年历史中遭遇的众多灾难之一。
Had it stopped here, there might still be dinosaurs today. But the nightmare hadn't even begun yet.
如果火山在这里停止喷发，恐龙可能还活着。但噩梦还没有开始。
The Beast Turns Furious The Deccan Traps would just not stop spewing lava.
野兽怒不可遏，德干地盾不停地喷涌着熔岩。
And so, after hundreds of thousands of years of never ending volcanic emissions, the catastrophe became global.
在数十万年永不停歇的火山喷发之后，灾难变成了全球性的灾难。
First the planet experienced a wave of heating, with oceans getting at least 2℃ hotter in just 100,000 years.
首先，地球经历了一波升温浪潮，海洋温度在短短10万年内至少上升了2摄氏度。
Which is bad, but just about the timeframe that leaves ecosystems a chance to adapt. But then nature would pull a cruel prank.
这很糟糕，但这正是生态系统有机会适应的时间范围。但随后大自然会开一个残酷的玩笑。
Some of the gasses of the Deccan Traps heated the planet up, while others cooled it down.
德干地盾的一些气体使地球升温，而另一些气体则使地球降温。
But the mix was uneven, so after the initial warming, a period of cooling followed, massively stressing the ecosystems that barely managed to adapt to the hotter temperatures.
但混合不均匀，因此在最初的变暖之后，随后是一段降温期，给勉强适应高温的生态系统带来了巨大的压力。
At the same time, the sulfur in the atmosphere came back down as acid rain, while the CO2 was acidifying the oceans and killing the plankton – which was, and still is today, the basis of the food web in the oceans.
与此同时，大气中的硫以酸雨的形式回落，而二氧化碳使海洋酸化并杀死浮游生物——浮游生物过去是，现在仍然是海洋食物网的基础。
And if plankton disappears, a massive extinction is all but guaranteed. But now the grand finale was about to begin.
如果浮游生物消失，大规模灭绝几乎是必然的。但现在大结局即将开始。
About 50,000 years before impact, the true apocalypse came.
大约在撞击发生前5万年，真正的末日来临了。
