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Like a cosmic horror breaking out of its prison, the Deccan Traps roared and screamed and began to spew out tens of trillions of tons of magma and even more deadly gasses in an onslaught that lasted for several thousand years.
就像宇宙恐怖从监狱中冲出来一样，德干地盾咆哮着、尖叫着，开始喷出数十万亿吨的岩浆和更致命的气体，这场猛烈的攻击持续了数千年。
Rolling over ecosystems, devastating everything they reached. For a time as long as all of human civilization, this lava armageddon brought massive wildfires.
席卷了生态系统，摧毁了它们所触及的一切。在与整个人类文明一样长的时间内，这场熔岩大战带来了大规模的野火。
Earthquakes and tsunamis smashed and shook the continent.
地震和海啸摧毁并震动了大陆。
So much heat was released from the roaring hot interior of our planet that it might have created hypercanes –
如此多的热量从我们星球咆哮的炎热内部释放出来，以至于它可能创造了超级飓风——
cyclones tens of kilometers wide, with winds reaching almost 1000 km/h – 3 times more than the deadliest hurricane ever recorded by humanity.
数十公里宽的气旋，风速几乎达到每小时1000公里——是人类有史以来最致命的飓风的3倍。
These storms were so massive and intense that they could reach tens of kilometers into the stratosphere and rip holes into the ozone layer, with devastating consequences for all life, now without protection from the sun's radiation.
这些风暴如此巨大而强烈，以至于它们可以到达平流层数十公里，并在臭氧层上撕开洞，给所有生命带来毁灭性后果，现在没有保护免受太阳辐射。
And of course, where the hyper storms occurred, devastation and death would follow.
当然，在超级风暴发生的地方，毁灭和死亡将接踵而至。
And if all this wasn't enough, out of the guts of the earth came colossal amounts of venom.
如果这一切还不够的话，从地球内部喷涌而出的毒液更是数不胜数。
Giant clouds loaded with mercury and hydrochloric acid rolled over the planet, delivering the final blow to the remnants of a once magnificent and fertile world.
巨大的云层中充满了汞和盐酸，滚滚而来，给这个曾经壮丽富饶的世界的残余带来了最后一击。
As food chains crumbled and the whole world around them collapsed, some of the last dinosaurs to ever walk the Earth may have died vomiting toxic foam while being bathed in acid rain.
随着食物链的崩溃和周围整个世界的崩塌，地球上最后几只恐龙可能在酸雨中呕吐有毒泡沫而死亡。
A cruel end for the members of a noble family that had ruled the world for so long. Then, it just ended.
对于统治世界这么久的贵族家族成员来说，这是一个残酷的结局。然后，一切就这么结束了。
The frenetic eruptions slowed down and the endless natural disasters began to fade away. But the world was changed forever.
疯狂的火山喷发减缓了，无休止的自然灾害开始逐渐消失。但世界永远改变了。
The monster had left unfathomable devastation and corpses in its wake. Even the planet's ecosystems far away were severely wounded.
这个怪物留下了无法估量的破坏和尸体。甚至遥远星球的生态系统也受到了严重破坏。
It was the end of a whole geological era. A murder that started slowly and then turned loud and violent. And then it happened.
这是整个地质时代的终结。一场谋杀案开始缓慢，然后变得喧闹而暴力。然后它就发生了。
Like a cosmic joke, on the other side of the world, a bright dot of light appeared in the sky.
就像一个宇宙笑话，在世界的另一端，天空中出现了一个明亮的光点。
And an instant later, an asteroid 10 km across smashed into earth with the power of 4 billion atomic bombs.
一瞬间，一颗直径10公里的小行星以40亿颗原子弹的威力撞击地球。
If you want to see what this was like, we made a whole video about it. If life on earth was like a murder victim barely holding on, this was the final blow. Just too much.
如果您想看看这是什么样的，我们制作了整个视频。如果地球上的生命就像一个勉强支撑的谋杀受害者，那么这就是最后一击。实在是太多了。
After the massacre, on the other side of the world, the Deccan Traps went on expelling tens of trillions of tons of deadly gasses for another 800,000 years, making sure the devastated planet stayed covered in poison.
大屠杀之后，在世界的另一端，德干地盾继续喷出数十万亿吨致命气体，持续了80万年，确保这个被毁坏的星球一直被毒气覆盖。
When they eventually finished and truly went back to sleep, 75% of all species on Earth had perished.
当它们最终结束并真正重新沉睡时，地球上75%的物种已经灭绝。
Most famously almost all dinosaurs. Except – birds, the only dinos that are still with us today.
最著名的是几乎所有的恐龙。除了鸟类，这是今天唯一还与我们同在的恐龙。
Their stunning beauty and diversity are a shy reminder of how majestic and wonderful their larger cousins must have been.
它们惊人的美丽和多样性羞涩地提醒人们，它们的大表亲一定是多么雄伟和美妙。
So - Who Was the Murderer? Were the dinosaurs doomed by the traps? Or would they have survived without the asteroid? Was it teamwork? Well, we don't know.
谁是凶手？恐龙是被陷阱毁灭的吗？或者如果没有小行星，它们会幸存下来吗？是团队合作吗？我们不知道。
Scientists have been fiercely debating this question for years, but for now we have no definite answer.
多年来，科学家们一直在激烈争论这个问题，但目前我们还没有明确的答案。
The timeline of events that we've shown here is based on some of the most recent reconstructions of the evolution of the Deccan Traps.
我们在这里展示的事件时间表是基于对德干地盾演化的一些最新重建。
There are other ones that paint a different picture but right now scientists are still fiercely arguing over this, check our sources to learn more.
还有其他人描绘了不同的画面，但现在科学家们仍在激烈地争论这个问题，请查看我们的资料来源以了解更多信息。
So like much of true crime, we can't end this story with an easy and satisfying resolution.
就像许多真实的犯罪一样，我们无法用一个轻松而令人满意的结局来结束这个故事。
Time has the nasty habit of erasing evidence, so maybe we'll never really know. But there is something else hidden in the dust, something truly terrifying.
时间有抹去证据的坏习惯，所以也许我们永远都不会真正知道。但在尘埃中还隐藏着其他东西，一些真正可怕的东西。
As we learn more and more about the past, we found that at least 4 of the 5 big mass extinctions happened at the same time as the Earth was furiously spewing gargantuan amounts of magma.
随着我们对过去的了解越来越多，我们发现五次大规模灭绝中至少有四次发生在地球疯狂喷出大量岩浆的同时。
The monster that might have killed the dinosaurs seems to be a serial killer.
可能杀死恐龙的怪物似乎是一个连环杀手。
The worst massacre ever, the Permian mass extinction 250 million years ago, was caused by the Siberian Traps – a hellish flood of lava that killed 95% of all the species on earth, almost bringing life to its knees.
有史以来最严重的大屠杀是2.5亿年前的二叠纪大灭绝，是由西伯利亚地盾引起的——一场地狱般的熔岩洪流杀死了地球上95%的物种，几乎使生命陷入瘫痪。
Until recently, many scientists thought that this was an outlier, but new evidence suggests it may have been the rule.
直到最近，许多科学家还认为这只是一个例外，但新的证据表明，这可能是常态。
Other big mass extinctions happened when the monster awoke from its sleep and the longer and more violently it rampaged, the more slaughter we can see in the fossil record.
其他大规模灭绝发生在怪物从沉睡中醒来时，它肆虐的时间越长、越猛烈，我们在化石记录中看到的屠杀就越多。
So maybe the dinosaurs were not massacred by a casual murderer from outer space, but by a serial killer hiding beneath our feet.
所以也许恐龙不是被来自外太空的随意杀手屠杀的，而是被藏在我们脚下的连环杀手屠杀的。
Do you need to worry about all of this? Definitely not. While the monster is real, it's amazingly slow and currently very sleepy.
你需要担心这一切吗？当然不需要。虽然这个怪物是真实存在的，但它行动异常缓慢，目前非常困倦。
If it were about to awake again, scientists monitoring the Earth's interior would get a warning really early – maybe even millions of years in advance. Time enough to prepare and move out of the way.
如果它即将再次苏醒，监测地球内部的科学家会很早就收到警告——甚至可能提前数百万年。有足够的时间做好准备并躲开。
