Thanks rktman.
Posted on 04/28/2020 6:31:27 AM PDT by rktman
The interstellar object (alternatively a comet or an asteroid) that killed the dinosaurs when it slammed into Earth didn't work alone. Researchers have shown previously that its after-effects, such as tidal waves and earthquakes, played an important role in the mass extinctions of three-fourths of plant and animal life. Now, new research suggests that one of the most important factors was the soot-rich smoke from fires sparked by the collision.
Clay Tabor, a geoscientist at the University of Connecticut, and his colleagues studied soot, sulfates and dust to see how each type of particle may have contributed to the cataclysm. They found that while all three particles blocked heat from the sun, soot played a dominant role. The results were published earlier this year in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
When the impactor plowed into the Earth and created the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, it vaporized the crust and created a planet-wide plume of debris that emitted radiation at a rate about 20 times stronger than the sun. It ignited plants and animals in its path. Later, lightning from impact-generated storms ignited more fires, maintaining an atmosphere rich in soot.
"Soot is very good at absorbing sunlight," Tabor says. "As soot gets into the stratosphere, some of it heats the atmosphere and self-lofts higher, increasing its atmospheric residence time."
The soot was the death knell for many marine creatures. While oceans protected them from blazes, the soot remained in the atmosphere to block most sunlight for nearly two years, darkening the skies and preventing photosynthesis. The new calculations suggest that it took almost six years for sunlight levels at the surface to return to normal, hindering recovery and leading to mass marine extinctions
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
Asteroid impact is the assumed reason for dinosaur extinction. However that does not explain why marine dinosaurs went extinct. Nor does it explain a possible tripling of Earth’s gravity implied by dinosaurs’ size.
Climate Change!
However that does not explain why marine dinosaurs went extinct.
~~~
Even in the posted excerpt, it seems the explanation offered was that photosynthesis stopped in the oceans too, not just on land, for the same reasons; lack of sunlight. I didn’t click the link but what is implied by that is that without the plant based portion of the ocean ecology, the food chain broke down and the marine dinosaurs starved.
You proudly posted without reading the excerpt!
Soot.....
Soot is all carbon and produces global cooling that killed everything
Soot overwhelmened the CO2 and water vapor greenhouse planet warming gasses.
“The soot was the death knell for many marine creatures. While oceans protected them from blazes, the soot remained in the atmosphere to block most sunlight for nearly two years, darkening the skies and preventing photosynthesis.”
Just a SWAG. I still want to know how many ‘buh-zillion’ dinos there were to provide this much oil. :-)
Nor does it explain a possible tripling of Earth’s gravity implied by dinosaurs’ size.
...
If you published that claim about gravity I bet a lot of people would say it’s stupid.
But I thought no living thing ever died from anything other than the coronavirus?
Oh, like most of us. LOL!
Almost at the same time as the Chicxulub impact, the Deccan Traps in India erupted, the most intense volcanic eruption in Earth’s history.
India is almost exactly on the other side of the Earth from Mexico, so some have suggested the two were linked. Certainly all the volcanic gases released couldn’t have been good for the environment.
The extinction may be more complex than “just” the meteor impact.
Guess algore hadn’t invented YUGE HEPA filters at that time?
Maybe a huge flood caused it.
Yeah it’s so true.
Without the asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions that disrupted its equilibrium, Earth was much warmer. Tropical, even.
Ice caps tiny or non-existent. Oceans warmer, levels higher, such that a lot of the midwest was an inland sea.
That's what the scientists just said in the article, that's the way it's supposed to be. So why should we fight Global Warming? Isn't it the Earth trying to get back to NORMAL? Who are we to mess with nature?
Thanks rktman.
You mean the Earth healed itself? How can this be? I thought that only Big Government could save the planet?
And about the same time was possibly the Shiva impact event. This 500 KM long X 400 KM wide crater like structure is just to the West of the DeccanTraps. It appears to be slightly older than the traps because some of the basalt flows overly the impact structure. By comparison, the Chicxulub crater is about 150 KM in diameter.
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