New high-precision U/Pb geochronology from volcanic ashes shows that the
Triassic-Jurassic boundary and end-Triassic biological crisis from two
independent marine stratigraphic sections correlate with the onset of
terrestrial flood volcanism in the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province to
<150 ka. This narrows the correlation between volcanism and mass
extinction by an order of magnitude for any such catastrophe in Earth
history. We also show that a concomitant drop and rise in sea level and
negative delta C-13 spike in the very latest Triassic occurred locally
in <290 ka. Such rapid sea-level fluctuations on a global scale require
that global cooling and glaciation were closely associated with the
end-Triassic extinction and potentially driven by Central Atlantic
Magmatic Province volcanism.