Remember the earthquake we just
had?
We've been having too many.
Something's wrong...
Hope the Big One isn't coming!
I blame Lavos's presence inside the earth's core for all these geological anomalies. Lavos is most likely affecting the plate tectonics of the planet's crust.
Doesn't that kill the PD theory though?
Lavos's pocket dimension transcends time, not space. It is still physically present in the core of the Earth.
I think Gray over exaggerated Lavos compared to our modern day physics and comet laws.
Lavos landed on the Tryno Lair, and that was all that was destroyed. Nothing Else, nothing more. It'd take time before the ice age starts. We didn't see a huge dust cloud, only the vapourization of Tryno Lair (well the land it was on). There was no huge fire inferno that spread from the area, otherwise Ioka would have been destroyed + the forests etc.
AZALA: Soon, stones of fire will rain
down.
Flames shall scorch the land.
The burned out plains will slowly
freeze, ushering in a long, cruel ice
age.
Mwa, ha ha...what a treat!
You will wish you went along with us!
Mwa ha!
KINO: Lavos fall.
Reptites gone. Good!
But get cold now.
Hunting bad...
But Kino not give up!
Ayla no worry, leave to Kino!
Many cloud in sky.
No can see sun.
White, cold stuff fall from sky.
What that?
Bright fire, Lavos, fall.
Get cold now.
No more Sweet Water.
Never happen before.
Less monster, now cold.
Less animal too.
Brr!
Cold!
The Super Nintendo has obvious graphical limitations, which do not allow for an accurate representation of Lavos's devastation of the world in 65 million BC. However, Azala and the human villagers describe global destruction and catastrophic climate change brought about by Lavos's impact.
The idea of an ice age lasting millions of years is called Snowball Earth (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth). There is a lot of controversy in the scientific community as to whether this hypothesis actually occurred, but it relates to the events observed in Chrono Trigger.
A massive earth impact in Chicxulub, Mexico is generally accepted to have caused the K-T boundary layer (Cretaceous) mass extinction event 65,000,000 years ago. An asteroid or comet with an estimated diameter of 10 km impacted with the energy 100 trillion Tons of TNT. The explosion produced tsunamis and expelled thousands of cubic kilometers of rock into the air and into space. Falling debris would have superheated the upper atmosphere, baking the surface of the earth and causing global wildfires. Dust suspended in the atmosphere from the impact and wildfires blocked sun-light, halting photosynthesis and causing global climate change. In order to cause the global effects seen in the game, an impact of this magnitude would be required (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_Crater).
If the atmospheric dust caused sufficient global cooling, snow and sea-ice would reflect more sun-light, exacerbating the cooling effect. More ice would form, increasing the planet's albedo, until the ice extended to the equator. An environment similar to this, with global ice and snow cover, existed in 12,000 BC in Chrono Trigger. The runaway ice-age would persist for millions of years until a buildup of greenhouse gases from volcanic eruptions (or Lavos's eruption in 12,000 BC) caused the rapid warming of the planet. The Snowball Earth scenario may not have really occurred on earth, but Lavos's impact caused a similar climactic change to occur in Chrono Trigger.
