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Dinosaur killer may have struck oil
Australian Broadcasting Corporation ^ | May 07, 2008 | Larry O'Hanlon

Posted on 05/08/2008 12:11:16 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper

The dinosaur-killing Chicxulub meteor might have ignited an oilfield rather than forests when it slammed into the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago, say geologists.

Smoke-related particles found in sediments formed at the time of the impact are strikingly similar to those created by modern high-temperature coal and oil burning, as opposed to forest fires, says Professor Simon Brassell of Indiana University.

He and colleagues from Italy and the UK publish their report on the discovery in the May issue of the journal Geology.

...What he and his colleagues have found instead are particles called cenospheres, which resemble the sooty output of industrial coal and oil burning, he says.

When cenospheres are found, they are usually associated with what's called fly ash, which is man-made.

"In many places the presence of such material is taken as evidence as the presence of human activities," says Brassell.

And since the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is about 65 million years too early for humans and their coal-fired Industrial Revolution, something else had to be burning fossil fuels.

Brassell and his team suggest that the Chicxulub meteor crashed into oily shales of the Gulf of Mexico, which caused the oil in the rocks to vaporise and ignite in the air, making cenospheres in the process.

Today the large oil fields that edge right up to the Chicxulub structure testify to the ample supply of oil available to burn 65 million years ago.

(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: alvarez; catastrophism; chicxulub; chondrite; dinosaur; dinosaurs; godsgravesglyphs; paleontology; thomasgold
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I may not be the brightest bulb but didn't the stuff that was there 65 million years ago *become* the oil we burn today?

At any rate, I suppose the dinosaurs are the lucky ones. At least they never got stuck in traffic on the way to/from work.

1 posted on 05/08/2008 12:11:17 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Oil deposits are allegedly largely from the Carboniferous era and predates dinosaur be a lot of millions of years.

Or so I have read...


2 posted on 05/08/2008 12:15:08 PM PDT by El Sordo
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To: Berlin_Freeper
How long until we read about the dinosaur's industrial age which caused global warming and their own extinction?
3 posted on 05/08/2008 12:16:25 PM PDT by In veno, veritas (Please identify my Ad Hominem attacks. I should be debating ideas.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Stupid meteor. Wasting our oil.


4 posted on 05/08/2008 12:16:41 PM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Maybe the meteorite was made of oil.


5 posted on 05/08/2008 12:17:15 PM PDT by Brilliant
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Bush’s fault darn it.


6 posted on 05/08/2008 12:20:05 PM PDT by Tigercap (McCain. For Supreme Court judge nominations and WOT progress if nothing else.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
At least they never got stuck in traffic on the way to/from work.

Being EATEN on the way to/from work was a different matter. ;)

/johnny

7 posted on 05/08/2008 12:20:16 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Bless us all, each, and every one.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Damn.

Thats gonna drive up oil prices again.


8 posted on 05/08/2008 12:24:34 PM PDT by kennyboy509 (Ha! I kill me!)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

It's all a conspiracy man!! A lie from big tobacco.

9 posted on 05/08/2008 12:24:51 PM PDT by CougarGA7 (Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

65 million years ago...that’s when oil was only $97 a barrel.


10 posted on 05/08/2008 12:32:22 PM PDT by pke
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To: Berlin_Freeper
"In many places the presence of such material is taken as evidence as the presence of human activities," says Brassell.

I'm not going to push this, since I'm sure I'm over-reaching, but ...

When they find material which is often taken as evidence of human activities, and when that evidence seems to be from 65 million years ago, does that suggest in anyway that the dating methods may be off?

One of the classic retorts against Creationism or ID is "If we find homo sapiens in a coal bed, maybe we'll rethink the dating, but that has never happened."

Well ...

11 posted on 05/08/2008 12:34:40 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Et si omnes ego non)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

There is a theory pursued by the Russians that oil is not a fossil fuel at all but is generated deep under the crust my microbes. As evidence some oil wells in the gulf which were thought depleted have resurged.


12 posted on 05/08/2008 12:36:05 PM PDT by Eaglefixer
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To: Berlin_Freeper

OH No.So they’re telling us that oil has been polluting the earth since time before the Dinasaurs went extinct.

I wonder if big oil had anything to do with that.


13 posted on 05/08/2008 12:42:30 PM PDT by puppypusher (The world is going to the dogs.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Waitaminit........ so, according to this theory, there was massive burning of fossil fuels — which, according to today’s enviro-whackos, causes global warming. But the evolutionists also say that the dinosaurs were wiped out because the earth cooled because of a global dust cloud from the meteor, don’t they?


14 posted on 05/08/2008 12:45:38 PM PDT by NewJerseyJoe (Rat mantra: "Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!")
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To: Berlin_Freeper
but didn't the stuff that was there 65 million years ago *become* the oil we burn today

That was conventional wisdom for a while. Not so sure anymore as Titan Has More Oil Than Earth is a little hard to explain by dead dinos and plants.

15 posted on 05/08/2008 12:52:34 PM PDT by Domandred (McCain's 'R' is a typo that has never been corrected)
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To: CougarGA7
Photobucket

This is what really happened to the last dinosaur.

16 posted on 05/08/2008 1:02:46 PM PDT by skimask (Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
The dinosaur-killing Chicxulub meteor might have ignited an oilfield rather than forests when it slammed into the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago...

I guess that stupid theory that dinosaurs and the plants they ate didn't turn into oil after all.

17 posted on 05/08/2008 1:05:59 PM PDT by GingisK
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To: SunkenCiv

GGG ping


18 posted on 05/08/2008 1:47:11 PM PDT by Fractal Trader
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To: Berlin_Freeper
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
19 posted on 05/08/2008 1:49:54 PM PDT by Sax
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To: pke

I bet there was only 40 years of oil left, too.


20 posted on 05/08/2008 1:58:27 PM PDT by In veno, veritas (Please identify my Ad Hominem attacks. I should be debating ideas.)
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