Qualla: Siberian Traps https://qualla.com/siberian-traps en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:36 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/v/g/z/v/siberian-traps-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Siberian Traps https://qualla.com/siberian-traps Siberian Traps: Introduction https://qualla.com/siberian-traps/ Photo credit דקי, CC BY-SA 3.0. The word sounds benign enough. "Traps" comes from the Swedish trappa, meaning stairs, and the name simply describes the step-like terrain that basalt lava flows leave behind as they erode. But the Siberian Traps are anything but benign. Roughly 252 million years ago, a plume of superheated rock rose from deep in the Earth's mantle and punched through the Siberian Craton, unleashing volcanic eruptions that continued for approximately two million years. The lava covered an area now estimated at seven million square kilometers. The gases those eruptions released triggered the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the most catastrophic die-off in the history of life on Earth.

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Image: דקי | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/g/z/v/siberian-traps-wp/vgzv-siberian-traps-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Siberian Traps: A Staircase Built by Fire https://qualla.com/siberian-traps/ Photo credit OlgaChuma Ольга Чумаченко, CC BY-SA 3.0. The term "trap" entered geological vocabulary between 1785 and 1795, borrowed from Swedish miners who saw stair-step landscapes in eroded basalt. In Siberia, that staircase stretches across a region larger than Western Europe. The Putorana Plateau, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in...

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Image: OlgaChuma Ольга Чумаченко | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/g/z/v/siberian-traps-wp/vgzv-siberian-traps-a-staircase-built-by-fire.mp3 0:06 2 full Siberian Traps: The Great Dying https://qualla.com/siberian-traps/ Photo credit EugeneF, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Permian-Triassic extinction event, sometimes called the Great Dying, eliminated roughly 90% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species. It was not the lava itself that killed. The eruptions pumped enormous volumes of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, halogens, ...

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Image: EugeneF | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/g/z/v/siberian-traps-wp/vgzv-siberian-traps-the-great-dying.mp3 0:06 3 full Siberian Traps: Reading the Evidence in Rock https://qualla.com/siberian-traps/ Photo credit Timur V. Voronkov, CC BY-SA 3.0. Linking the Siberian Traps definitively to the extinction required decades of detective work. Scientists used chemical abrasion thermal ionization mass spectrometry, known as CA-TIMS, to date zircon crystals found within the trap rocks with extraordinary precision. By eliminating...

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Image: Timur V. Voronkov | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/g/z/v/siberian-traps-wp/vgzv-siberian-traps-reading-the-evidence-in-rock.mp3 0:06 4 full Siberian Traps: A Landscape of Deep Time https://qualla.com/siberian-traps/ Photo credit Timur V. Voronkov, CC BY 3.0. Flying over central Siberia today, the Siberian Traps reveal themselves as a vast, flat terrain punctuated by plateau edges and canyon walls. The Putorana Plateau rises sharply above the surrounding lowlands, its table-topped mountains laced with waterfalls that plunge into glaci...

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Image: Timur V. Voronkov | CC BY 3.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/v/g/z/v/siberian-traps-wp/vgzv-siberian-traps-a-landscape-of-deep-time.mp3 0:06 5 full