Indeed it is a big deal. In geologic times, this happened yesterday! Some heavy hitters in the paleo business have gotten on board this train so look for the textbooks to be changing soon. VERY interesting stuff when you think about some of the ancient texts derived from oral "myths" possibly referencing some of these goings on.
Civ I don't know if you noticed, but the supernova/gamma ray burst/cosmic bombardment association seems to have disappeared -- or has it?
baynut, I ran through the article fairly quickly, so I many have missed something, but it still doesn't appear to shed any additional light on the origin of the Bays. I'll have to take another look at it this evening when I've got a little more time. Good post!
Civ I don't know if you noticed, but the supernova/gamma ray burst/cosmic bombardment association seems to have disappeared -- or has it?Some years ago, there was a book in which the author put forward a model for K-T extinction due to supernova; I tried to get into it, but didn't find it compelling. I don't recall the author's name or the book's title, or anything that would be useful for this anecdote. Nuts.