Science. 1988 Aug 5;241(4866):663-8. doi: 10.1126/science.241.4866.663.
A chronology of the initiation dates of major continental flood basalt volcanism is established from published potassium-argon (K-Ar) and argon-argon (Ar-Ar) ages of basaltic rocks and related basic intrusions. The dating is therefore independent of the biostratigraphic and paleomagnetic time scales. Estimated errors of the initation dates of the volcanic episodes determined from the distributions of the radiometric ages are, approximately, plus or minus 4 percent. There were 11 distinct episodes during the past 250 million years. Sometimes appearing in pairs, the episodes have occurred quasi-periodically with a mean cycle time of 32 +/- 1 (estimated, error of the mean) million years. The initiation dates of the episodes are close to the estimated dates of mass extinctions of marine organisms. Showers of impacting comets may be the cause.
从已发表的玄武岩岩石和相关基性侵入岩的钾-氩（K-Ar）和氩-氩（Ar-Ar）年龄，建立了主要大陆溢流玄武岩火山作用的起始日期的年代表。因此，这种年代测定是独立于生物地层学和古地磁时间尺度的。从放射性年龄分布确定的火山事件起始日期的估计误差约为正负 4%。在过去的 2.5 亿年中，发生了 11 个不同的事件。这些事件有时成双出现，准周期性出现，平均周期时间为 32 +/- 1（估计值，平均值的误差）百万年。这些事件的起始日期接近海洋生物大灭绝的估计日期。可能是大量撞击彗星的阵雨造成的。
