0:01 It's the weekend and you and your
0:03 friends have plans to go to the beach,
0:05 which means a few good things. Tasty
0:08 food, drinks, sand, and of course that
0:10 sweet, sweet sun. But when you guys
0:12 arrive, the rain starts coming down hard
0:15 and your plans are ruined, at least
0:17 temporarily. As not to worry, you can
0:19 just wait it out. But what if it keeps
0:21 raining and raining [music] and raining
0:23 and you guessed it, raining, and let's
0:25 say for a thousand years it is nothing
0:27 but dreary weather. Well, at that point,
0:29 I doubt you'd still be around. And if
0:31 you were, I'd tell you to suck it up. As
0:33 1,000 years of rain is actually a mercy
0:36 compared to what took place roughly 234
0:38 million years ago when one day it
0:39 started raining and then didn't stop for
0:43 nearly 2 million years. This was the
0:45 carnian pluial episode. As this name so
0:47 nicely puts it, this bizarre event in
0:49 history took place during the Carneian,
0:51 one of the six stages that make up the
0:52 Triacic and the first stage, the late
0:54 portion of it. In general, it's widely
0:56 regarded as a fairly normal and tame
0:59 stage as far as the triacic goes, which
1:00 isn't saying a whole lot given the whole
1:02 wackiness of this period. At that time,
1:04 most of the world's land was still tied
1:06 up into the massive superc continent of
1:08 Pangia, which spanned over 1/3 of the
1:10 planet's surface, while the super ocean
1:11 Panthalasa and the smaller ocean, the
1:13 Paleotthus, were essentially dominating
1:15 the rest of the globe. In the weather
1:17 and climate department, things were
1:19 triacic as usual, too, meaning a whole
1:21 lot of hot and aid weather that resulted
1:23 in many areas being straight up sand or
1:25 rocks. However, there were distinct wet
1:27 seasons that you definitely couldn't
1:29 miss. And I mean that literally, as the
1:31 extreme land to sea distribution led to
1:34 something called mega monsoons, which if
1:36 you can guess were monsoons that were
1:38 absolutely supercharged, being far more
1:40 intense than any monsoons around today.
1:42 So this in turn with the general just
1:44 crummy environment meant that big swaves
1:46 of the interior pangia which laid close
1:48 to the equator were straight up
1:50 uninhabitable for the vast majority of
1:52 life. And the problem with the interiors
1:53 were only further exacerbated by the
1:55 presence of the central pangian
1:56 mountains which laid near the center of
1:58 the massive land mass and essentially
2:00 split it into two resulting in a clear
2:02 north and south. And these mountains
2:04 were not only wide but also extremely
2:05 tall which led to them casting something
2:08 called rain shadows. massive ones,
2:10 resulting in some areas somehow being
2:11 even drier. While they also influence
2:13 the mega monsoons, making them just a
2:15 tad bit more unpredictable, which is
2:17 saying something. So, no doubt this was
2:19 one chaotic phase from mother nature.
2:21 Yet, life still managed to do its thing,
2:22 especially along the coast and southern
2:24 regions where the climate was a bit more
2:26 reasonable. And actually, life during
2:28 the Carnian had been able to ramp up
2:30 quite a bit with things starting to get
2:31 quite interesting. Part of this has to
2:33 do with the fact that the great dying
2:34 had taken place just before the
2:36 Jurassic, which had been bad enough that
2:38 life's recovery was still happening. So,
2:39 in other words, new things were always
2:41 popping up left and right, including a
2:43 group you've definitely heard of, the
2:45 dinosaurs. Yep, it was in this
2:47 relatively unheard time that the most
2:49 famous prehistoric group of animals
2:51 first emerged, or [music] at least the
2:53 first unequivocal true dinosaurs did.
2:55 Our knowledge about these OGs mainly
2:57 stems from the Santa Maria Formation, a
2:59 locality that sat within Pen and Brazil
3:01 and was composed of semi-arid lands
3:03 where Spar's forest and the odd river 2
3:04 rested. And if you time travelveled back
3:07 here, you would find within a novel type
3:10 of creature, the Starosaurus, a 2.25 m
3:13 or 7'5 in long Hiarasaur. In other
3:15 words, a type of dinosaur who was also,
3:17 by the way, among the largest dinos of
3:19 the time. But that's still not much as
3:21 it only needed to weigh the same as a
3:23 medium-sized dog in order to hold this
3:24 achievement. And this smaller size
3:26 opposed to its later kin limited its
3:28 diet to small and equally medium-sized
3:31 vertebrates like sinodons, rancosaurs,
3:34 and various synapsids. So, it was
3:36 certainly an oddball of a dino. Yet,
3:38 funny enough, it was also the normal one
3:39 in Santa Maria. As things get a bit
3:41 stranger when you take a look at the
3:42 only other known dinosaur, the
3:45 Burolestes, an even smaller dinosaur who
3:47 had sharp teeth, sharp claws, and get
3:51 this, two legs. So, clearly a theropod,
3:54 right? Uh, no. What you're looking at is
3:56 actually a sarapotamorpha, [music] which
3:58 meaning that one day it or its
4:00 descendants would give rise to giant
4:02 herbivorous sarapods. But for now, it
4:03 was a little meat eater. And we know
4:05 that it was not a theropod because it
4:07 possessed a downturned jaw tip and a
4:09 long delto pectoral crest on the
4:11 humorris. Both characteristics seen in
4:13 only sarapottomorphs. But visually
4:15 looking at this guy, I do have to admit
4:17 it's kind of a tough connection to make.
4:19 And in general, nearly every dinosaur
4:21 was like these guys. Two-legged and
4:23 small. But that being said, do not
4:25 underestimate them cuz they came in
4:28 great numbers. Kind of as alongside them
4:30 lived a large amount of non-dinosaur
4:32 dinosaur forms. In other words, the next
4:34 best thing to dinosaurs, being the
4:36 closest related things to them ever, but
4:38 which didn't quite hit the mark. And
4:40 some of the genera at the time included
4:43 Legosucus, Marasucus, and Salttopus, who
4:44 were even smaller than their more
4:46 derived kin. And if you saw them at a
4:47 passing glance, you might have confused
4:49 them for some strange lizard running
4:51 around on its two back legs. But
4:52 regardless, the presence of dinosaur
4:55 morpha was indeed very exciting, and by
4:57 association was great news for the
4:59 arosaurs. We're also cooking up a few
5:01 things besides the terrible lizards as
5:03 it was in this stage that we see some of
5:04 the most iconic animals of the late
5:06 triacic appear such as things like the
5:09 Risukians, phytosaurs, aotasaurs and
5:12 more. You name it and the carnian likely
5:14 had it. And when I say that, this does
5:16 extend to nonarchosaurs as well as other
5:18 new faces included the earliest
5:20 leitosaurs which included the ancestor
5:21 modern-day lizards, snakes, and
5:23 touittaraas. And you even had the first
5:26 Shiva swords in terasauramorpha appear
5:27 as well, which weren't actually
5:29 terasaurs as you might imagine them, but
5:31 rather their ancestors that had somewhat
5:33 terasaurike forms, which though in many
5:35 cases lacked wings, yet retained
5:36 structures that were like those of their
5:39 later descendants. And in the water,
5:40 things were cooking up too, with some
5:42 new faces including the earliest
5:44 plaadons, a unique, now extinct order
5:46 marine reptiles that superficially
5:48 looked like marine iguanas or like shell
5:50 turtles. And we also see bellites appear
5:52 in the carnine as well. in order of
5:53 squid-like sephopods that would
5:55 eventually become a major part of the
5:57 marine ecosystem all the way up to the
5:59 late Cretaceous in some cases achieving
6:01 some pretty remarkable sizes. But for
6:04 now, they remained kawaii size. So with
6:06 this all said, evidently the Carneian as
6:08 a whole was a spicy time for life. But
6:10 this was really all just a teaser of
6:12 what was to come. As in the background,
6:13 things were underway that would [music]
6:16 soon have intense ramifications. namely
6:17 along the western coast of North
6:18 America, you would have found the
6:21 massive Reangelia flood basults, a type
6:23 of large ignous province, commonly
6:26 abbreviated to LIP. Now, if you've been
6:27 following me long enough, you know this
6:30 only means trouble, as LIPs are well
6:32 known for being chaos harbingers. I
6:33 mean, just take a look at the Peran
6:36 extinction or Triacic extinction. Both
6:38 catastrophic events that were due to the
6:41 eruption of guess what? LIPs. And it was
6:43 around this time in the Carneian, aka
6:45 234 million years ago, that the
6:47 Reangalia flood basult finally erupted.
6:49 And they did so in brilliant fashion,
6:52 spewing untold amounts of lava, as well
6:54 as various gases, including one very
6:55 common face in present-day
6:57 world-changing events and events
7:00 overall, carbon dioxide. Now, let's just
7:02 say the Reangalia basalt, even for its
7:04 huge size, released an abnormal amount
7:06 of this stuff, which flooded the ocean
7:08 atmosphere system and leading to
7:09 worldwide global warming with
7:12 temperatures rising as much as 4 to8° C
7:15 or 7 to 14° F, making things quite
7:17 toasty to say the least. Meanwhile, the
7:19 rise in CO2 likely caused an extreme
7:21 acceleration of the hydraological cycle,
7:23 which basically supercharged continental
7:25 weathering. And it wasn't just the
7:26 amount of released carbon dioxide that
7:28 caused such a switch up, but also the
7:31 speed for these eruptions were short and
7:33 sweet. Ejecting this stuff at rates
7:35 typically not seen. And to make things a
7:36 little more dire, it seems that along
7:38 with carbon dioxide, these volcanoes
7:41 also contain atypical volumes of methane
7:43 clates, which without getting too
7:45 sciency is basically something that is
7:48 86 times more powerful than CO2 when it
7:49 comes to global warming potential,
7:51 exacerbating things just that much more.
7:53 And so when you combine all this global
7:55 warming and acceleration of the
7:57 hydraological cycle, one thing began to
8:00 happen. Rain and rain and rain. The
8:02 Coronian pluial event had officially
8:05 begun. Now we don't know and probably
8:07 will never know just how intense this
8:09 rain was. But we can say for certain
8:11 that it was coming down in unimaginable
8:13 amounts with it having essentially been
8:14 pouring dinosaurs and pseudoucians
8:17 rather than cats and dogs. Yeah, it was
8:19 that wild. In fact, the rain was so
8:22 extreme that we even have clear evidence
8:24 for its existence through certain rock
8:25 formations where the rain had eroded the
8:28 sediment enough to have exposed the
8:30 actual basement rock, which just for
8:31 reference are rocks laying right above
8:33 the mantle and sit below all other
8:36 sediments and rock, usually being buried
8:39 miles below the surface. So yeah, a lot
8:41 of rain erosion is needed to expose
8:43 them. Other signs that there was a
8:44 stupid amount of rain during this time
8:46 also included the widespread abundance
8:48 of amber in certain paleo soils that
8:50 only form when precipitation far exceeds
8:52 the amount of water being evaporated.
8:54 And as you know the amount of rain was
8:56 not the only ridiculous thing as like I
8:58 mentioned the duration was unbelievable
9:01 too saying that it lasted you know up to
9:03 2 million years. 2 million years of
9:05 perpetual rain. Well, I will admit that
9:07 perpetual maybe maybe a bit dramatic
9:09 because despite the common trope that it
9:10 rained non-stop for 2 million years
9:13 during this event, it probably didn't.
9:14 Instead, you would have found this time
9:15 to have had much higher rates of rain
9:17 than usual with events of hyper extreme
9:20 precipitation sprinkled in. No pun
9:22 intended. And the carium pluial wasn't
9:24 just all about rain, as in general, the
9:25 climate drastically switched from dry to
9:27 unusually humid. Basically, think the
9:30 wetest, soupiest rainforest possible,
9:31 transforming much of the planet into
9:33 tropical lush regions that would have
9:34 given the carboniferous a good run for
9:36 its money when it came to swampy-like
9:38 vibes with pete forests even having been
9:40 reestablished in this event. And a few
9:42 other things that became more common
9:44 during the CPE included flood planes and
9:46 marshes on massive scales, while giant
9:48 inland lakes that might have dwarfed the
9:50 Great Lakes of today were also present,
9:53 making this world 100% theophobia
9:55 certified. However, like most things,
9:57 where there is a push, there is a pull.
9:59 And while never ending rain was the rule
10:00 during this event, it turns out that
10:02 dryness remained during the car and
10:04 plovial episode. On top of periodic
10:06 episodes where aid conditions would
10:08 partially return, some studies have also
10:09 suggested that certain areas were
10:12 backstabbed by this event, becoming in
10:14 fact more erid than ever before. And
10:15 this included just about the driest
10:17 place in history, the interiors of
10:20 Pangia. As mentioned during the early
10:22 middle Triacic, these inter realms of
10:24 the continent were basically inhabitable
10:26 to life, being hot enough to essentially
10:28 cook a wide variety of meats, including,
10:30 by the way, living ones, and being so
10:33 dry that massive deserts took cold. And
10:34 thus, if they were really made worse by
10:37 the carvial episode, I doubt anything
10:39 could live within these extreme pockets.
10:42 Yet, I digress. In general, we're
10:43 talking about over a million years of
10:46 humid, relentless, rainy weather. And to
10:48 some, this might sound like a cozy time.
10:50 You know, like those cyberpunkish cities
10:51 where it's always raining. But in
10:53 reality, this event was less on the cozy
10:55 spectrum and more on the world ending or
10:57 changing spectrum. Because it turns out
10:59 that too much rain throws things into
11:01 array and the pluial event is considered
11:03 to be a forgotten extinction of sorts
11:05 with the changes to the environments,
11:07 worldwide flooding, and global warming
11:08 ending up in very high background rates
11:11 of extinction. And actually before this
11:12 rainy event was even hypothesized,
11:14 scientists were already aware that major
11:15 die-offs had occurred during the
11:18 Carnian. They just weren't sure why. But
11:20 now they know. Now perhaps surprisingly,
11:22 or maybe unsurprisingly, while you do
11:24 not feel the rain itself much
11:26 underwater, it was in fact marine life
11:27 that seems to have gotten battered the
11:29 most. With one hypothesis being that the
11:31 pluial event altered the oceans by
11:33 reducing their carbonate platforms and
11:35 thereby severely harming carbonate
11:36 forming animals resulting in large
11:38 amounts of conodants, ammonoids and
11:41 brizzoa dying out while algae and
11:43 kryoids took a massive hit as well. And
11:44 on top of that, can you guess what
11:46 million years of rain could do to an
11:49 ocean which you know is a salty body of
11:51 water? Yeah, dilute it. And there's
11:52 pretty good evidence that this happened
11:54 with the ocean salinity decreasing by
11:56 quite a bit which to me or you wouldn't
11:58 feel like much. But for certain marine
12:00 animals would have been literal torture
12:02 totally disrupting their homeostasis and
12:04 adding again to the higher background
12:06 extinction rate. Now on the flip side on
12:09 land the situation was a bit less dire
12:10 but still definitely not perfect as
12:12 there were more than a few animals that
12:13 had a tough time dealing with the
12:15 flooding rain and general transformation
12:16 of environments. And one of the main
12:18 groups to get pelted was one I've
12:20 already briefly named the rancosaurs.
12:22 This was a group of herbivorous
12:24 crocapota, meaning they were closer to
12:26 arcosaurs than lepitosaurs. And at first
12:27 appeared during the early days of the
12:29 Jurassic, finding great success quickly
12:31 and becoming quite abundant in certain
12:33 parts of Pangia, sometimes in fact
12:35 accounting for 40 to 60% of all
12:36 specimens from a formation. And
12:38 reflecting this, at the start of the
12:40 carnian, they could not have been doing
12:42 any better. Originally, they had been on
12:43 the small side and had lizard-like
12:45 builds, but now they'd achieved lengths
12:47 up to 2 meters and attained more robust
12:49 builds, while their faces lengthened and
12:51 became more triangular. And everything
12:52 seemed like it was only going to get
12:54 better for them. But, uh, the carnian
12:56 pluial event seemingly had other ideas.
12:58 And the rangosaurs were absolutely
12:59 battered during these years, with the
13:01 main idea being that they couldn't keep
13:03 up with a change in forests with their
13:05 preferred vegetation becoming rare and
13:07 rare. And essentially every family died
13:09 off except for one, the Hyperiro
13:12 Dapodonte. And still not even these guys
13:14 lasted much longer, disappearing the
13:16 very next stage. So uh these guys had a
13:18 pretty valid reason to hate the rain,
13:20 which by the way, so did the Dinanodons.
13:22 This group needs no introduction, having
13:24 given us plenty of iconic animals like
13:27 the placeras or listsaurus. But for
13:29 refresher sake, this was a very diverse
13:31 group of non-mleian thorrapsids that
13:33 were herbivores and typically possessed
13:35 tusks, thus their name, which means two
13:37 dog tooththed. Now, unlike many of the
13:39 others I've named so far, these guys had
13:41 actually been around since the perian.
13:43 And like the rancosaurus had been doing
13:45 just fine, but for similar reasons,
13:46 found themselves struggling during the
13:48 Pluial event, and many of the living
13:49 groups of the time wound up going
13:51 extinct. Yet, they would end up fairing
13:53 a tad bit better than the rankosaurs,
13:55 persisting a tad bit longer given their
13:57 greater diversity. But nevertheless,
13:59 they too still disappeared, going
14:02 extinct around 211 million years ago.
14:04 But with that said, what's very odd
14:06 about the Carne Pluvial event is that
14:07 while background extinction rates were
14:10 abnormally high at this time, I dare say
14:12 that more animals and organisms have it
14:14 to thank. As many walks of life actually
14:16 received quote unquote power-ups because
14:19 of it, including of course the biggest
14:21 rain lovers out there, plants and trees.
14:23 As the lands took a step back from the
14:25 arid paradigm, flora unsurprisingly
14:27 began a strong comeback with forests and
14:29 swamps sprouting all over the world. And
14:31 it was during this time that ferns,
14:33 conifers, and the Benicetalians heavily
14:35 diversified leading to them becoming the
14:37 main staves of messoic flora. And the
14:39 level up seen in forests as well as the
14:40 rise of inland lakes and lush
14:42 environments ultimately had a beneficial
14:44 impact on various creatures including by
14:46 the way the future mighty rulers of
14:49 Earth, the dinosaurs. Yep. As it so
14:51 turns out, it might have been this rainy
14:53 event that was an essential step in
14:55 their development with their diversity,
14:57 diversification rate, and size greatly
15:00 increasing after the CPE. And actually,
15:02 the overall abundance of dinosaurs also
15:04 ticked upwards during the Carneuvial
15:06 event. Informations go from yielding a
15:08 couple dinosaur genera to sometimes
15:10 nearly 10. And perhaps the best example
15:12 for this is the Isco Gulto formation out
15:14 of Argentina, which had at least eight
15:16 different kinds of dinosaurs living
15:17 within it, including multiple
15:20 sarapottomorphs and herrerasaurs.
15:21 Amongst them, you would have even found
15:23 the Herrerasaurus itself, which was one
15:25 of the largest predatory dinosaurs to
15:27 have lived throughout the entire triacic
15:30 with specimens growing up to 6 m or 20
15:32 ft long and possessing large serrated
15:33 teeth, allowing them to hunt a large
15:34 range of vertebbrates they lived
15:36 alongside while also becoming one of the
15:38 more common carnivores in this specific
15:40 ecosystem with over 50 different
15:42 specimens having been recovered. Other
15:44 specific genera included the likes of
15:48 Eoraptor, Eodromeus, Antias, Panagia,
15:50 and San Juansaurus, who was itself, by
15:52 the way, not much smaller than the
15:54 Herrerasaurus. Additionally, it's only
15:57 after this event that we see the rise of
15:59 the first giant dinosaurs, as it's
16:01 during the Norian some 228 million years
16:03 ago, that we get the evolution of
16:05 Lassamosaurus, one of the largest
16:07 triacic dinosaurs of all time. being a
16:10 sarapod that measured 12 m or 39 ft long
16:12 and weighed possibly up to 10 metric
16:14 tons near the record weight of an
16:16 African elephant. So not much compared
16:18 to the Jurassic and Cretaceous sarapods,
16:21 but impressive nonetheless. However,
16:23 having said this, you must remember that
16:24 the Triacic was not the dinosaur's
16:26 heyday. There were other more prominent
16:28 groups about who also got their own
16:30 power-ups after the CPE and this largely
16:33 involved the Aotosaurus who became one
16:34 of the most dominant animals on land and
16:37 were arosaurs more related to crocodiles
16:39 than birds and dinosaurs. It's easy to
16:41 call this group a odd bunch as on the
16:43 surface they looked like armored medium
16:45 to large-sized croc-like creatures. Yet
16:47 they were terrestrial and usually
16:50 herbivorous or at the most omnivorous
16:52 not predatorial. And it seems they
16:53 vastly benefited from the new forest
16:55 which emerged. Being able to better
16:56 specialize in conifers and ferns
16:58 compared to previous orders like the
17:00 rankosaurs. As another huge winner in
17:01 all this happened to be a somewhat close
17:04 relative of the aotasaur, albeit a tad
17:06 more bloodthirsty, and that was the
17:08 semi-aquatic phytosaurs. It's not hard
17:10 to imagine why a group of semi-aquatic
17:12 carnivores would do well after, well,
17:14 [music] a lot of rain. With the rise of
17:16 swamps and giant mega lakes being the
17:18 phytosaur's equivalent of taking a huge
17:20 whiff of smelling salts and very rapidly
17:22 they diversified, increasing their range
17:24 and ballooning in size, getting
17:25 essentially large enough that they could
17:27 take on just about anything. Meaning
17:30 that even sarapods of certain sizes had
17:31 to be on edge whenever taking a sip of
17:33 fresh water. And honestly giving me just
17:35 one more reason why to stay away from
17:37 giant pitless lakes. And while not to
17:38 the same degree, it seems that turtles
17:41 and crocodilomorphs made some headway as
17:43 well, further diversifying. So, who
17:44 knows? Maybe we have a 234
17:46 million-year-old rainstorm to thank for
17:48 crocs and turtles today. Of course,
17:50 though, I can't talk about a triacic
17:51 event without actually mentioning how
17:53 the true terrestrial rulers as far as
17:55 predators go, fared, which would be, by
17:58 the way, the Rowisukians, a diverse
17:59 group of usually quadripedal, terrifying
18:02 arcosaurs that had wicked jaws, armor,
18:04 and uh bad tempers. They had already
18:06 established themselves the dominant
18:08 predators at this point and were found
18:10 virtually worldwide while also nearly
18:11 always being an apex predator within
18:14 their respective ecosystems. However,
18:16 despite their power level, they like all
18:18 animals were impacted by the CPE. But
18:20 what kind of changes the pluial event
18:22 incurred on them is a bit more ambiguous
18:24 as there is debate on the extent of its
18:26 influence with some stating that even if
18:27 it hadn't occurred, not much would
18:29 change in the Rowisukian's timeline,
18:31 which obviously is a timeline that ends
18:33 with extinction. Although with this
18:35 said, there are a few interesting things
18:36 which have been observed in this group
18:38 and the timing of the event. For
18:39 starters, while the Rowisukians have
18:41 been fairly diverse throughout much of
18:43 the late triacic, a good chunk of genera
18:45 only pop up during the Carneian and more
18:47 specifically around or directly after
18:50 the eternal rainstorm. On top of that,
18:52 while they also were always quite sizy,
18:53 there does seem to be an increase in
18:55 body stature only following the rain.
18:57 This could have been sheer coincidence
18:59 of course yet interesting regardless and
19:02 was sour news for all non-raisukian life
19:04 as it's around this time that we start
19:06 to see genera like the sarosucus a
19:08 massive unit of a member that was 23 ft
19:11 or 7 m long and weighed about half a ton
19:13 while the even bigger the solosucus also
19:15 only appears following the carnian
19:18 albeit much later on and even though it
19:19 may be that these changes were unlin to
19:21 the carnian pluial episode I think it's
19:23 fair to say that 2 million years of rain
19:25 still had a rather large impact on on
19:27 the planet and changed its course
19:29 forever. Which thus only leaves one more
19:31 question, which is what happened
19:34 afterwards? What's the conclusion? Well,
19:36 eventually, like all things, the volcano
19:37 stopped erupting and the rain slowly
19:40 subsided, leading to a resume in the
19:41 air, dry and hot conditions that we know
19:44 of so well. However, while things in
19:45 some ways returned to normal, the
19:47 impacts of the carneium pluial event
19:48 were [music] lasting as changes
19:51 undergone by animals because of it would
19:53 ultimately lead to certain results seen
19:54 down the [music] road, either directly
19:57 or indirectly. So, the next time it
19:59 rains, I want you to remember this video
20:01 and thank it for giving us crocodiles
20:04 and turtles maybe. Thanks for watching
