Every once in a great while the earth's surface receives, in one relatively continuous belch, an outpouring of lava millions of times greater in volume than any human has ever witnessed a volcano release. Here in India for a wedding this week, I got to spend a little time in the Deccan -- a plateau created ~65 million years ago in just such an immense burp of volcanic gas (including our friend CO2) and magma. The pore spaces in the resulting rocks (namely basalts) are incredible! This was clearly a magma packed with volatiles such as carbon dioxide.
I wasn't able to photograph any fresh surfaces, but I plan on posting a photo of a hand sample, at least. For now, here's a link to a page about flood basalts and their consequences for the earth system: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=fbasalts
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