Over and over again, for millions of years.

And the animals were fine —

— at least in the geological short term, which is all that most species need (say, ten million years or so).

But this huge blowup occurred around the general time that Earth’s climate globally transitioned (jargon alert) from the “hothouse” enjoyed by the dinosaurs to today’s “icehouse” with frozen poles, etc.

I don’t know that any link between the two events — flareup and climate transition — has been unquestionably established or disproven.

That’s something to follow up on in the cat-evolution series, too.

Why?

Because the group that soon evolved into cats appeared, in Europe, shortly after that Hothouse-Icehouse Transition made room for them.

A little lagniappe:

Featured image: Relic of a much smaller eruption — Novarupta/Katmai, 1912. That was a VEI 6, per the Global Volcanism Program. The eruption at La Garita which produced the Fish Canyon Tuff, is the only VEI 9 on record. (Image by Eric Spenie via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)