Abstract:

Volcanic activity has long been regarded as one of the principal geological drivers of dinosaur evolution and extinction. Elucidating the spatiotemporal relationships between volcanism and dinosaur evolutionary dynamics is therefore essential for advancing our understanding of adaptive evolutionary strategies， dispersal patterns， and clustered extinction events in deep time. However， systematic investigations into the spatial coupling between volcanic activity and dinosaur evolution remain insufficient. In particular， despite the rapid expansion of geoscientific big data， there is still a lack of integrative studies that combine multi-source databases with quantitative spatial analytical approaches， which has constrained a comprehensive assessment of their co-evolutionary dynamics. Within a data-driven analytical framework， this study integrates dinosaur fossil records from the Paleobiology Database （PBDB） and the Deepbone Database （DBD）， together with volcanic rock data from the Geochemistry of Rocks of the Oceans and Continents （GEOROC）. By combining paleogeographic reconstructions with kernel density estimation and K-D tree nearest-neighbor analysis， we systematically characterize the spatiotemporal associations between dinosaur evolution and volcanic activity from the Late Triassic to the Late Cretaceous. The results indicate that under the overall warm climatic background of the Mesozoic， dinosaur distributions exhibit a pronounced latitudinal gradient， with a diversity peak concentrated in mid-latitude regions. Major eruptive events associated with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province and the Karoo-Ferrar Large Igneous Province exerted significant influences on dinosaur evolutionary trajectories， displaying strong temporal and spatial correlations. Spatial distance analyses further reveal that the distribution of distances between dinosaur fossil occurrences and volcanic rocks follows an overall decreasing trend and exhibits a bimodal structure， with a primary peak at 0-200 km and a secondary peak at approximately 450 km. This spatial pattern likely reflects the combined effects of short-term environmental disturbances induced by volcanic eruptions， long-term ecological benefits associated with volcanic material input， and paleogeographic configurations shaped by tectonic processes.

Key words: data-driven, dinosaur evolution, volcanic activity, paleogeographic reconstruction