Mondo Knows Facts

The Deccan Traps buried western India in lava

Repeated eruptions around 66 million years ago built a basalt province of half a million square kilometres The lava flowed in layers that now form the stepped hills of the Western Ghats, which give the region its trap name. Eruptions lasted perhaps a million years and released huge volumes of gas. The timing overlaps with the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous, and scientists still debate the relative contributions. It sits in Mondo's world geography collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

USGS

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Tags: mountains, india, volcanoes

The Deccan Traps buried western India in lava: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Repeated eruptions around 66 million years ago built a basalt province of half a million square kilometres. The figure is taken from USGS, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a world geography fact?
Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.