Posted on 10/08/2009 6:50:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Tiny organisms that covered the planet more than 250 million years ago appear to be a species of ancient fungus that thrived in dead wood, according to new research published October 1 in the journal Geology. The researchers behind the study, from Imperial College London and other universities in the UK, USA and The Netherlands, believe that the organisms were able to thrive during this period because the world's forests had been wiped out. This would explain how the organisms, which are known as Reduviasporonites, were able to proliferate across the planet... By analysing the carbon and nitrogen content of the fossilised remains of the microscopic organisms, the scientists identified them as a type of wood-rotting fungus that would have lived inside dead trees... Geological records show that the Earth experienced a global catastrophe during this period... Up to 96 per cent of all marine species and 70 per cent of land species became extinct... The team reached their conclusions by analysing the carbon and nitrogen content of Reduviasporonites using a High Sensitivity Mass Spectrometer and comparing the results with those from modern fungi. They discovered that Reduviasporonites and modern fungi show similar chemical characteristics. In the future, the team plan to carry out further comparisons between Reduviasporonites and potential counterparts among modern fungi, which they hope will provide further clues about how Reduviasporonites lived.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Some moron will put "callingartbell" in the keywords in 3, 2, 1...Canada's Shores Saved Animals From Devastating Climate Change 252 Million Years AgoU of C scientists have solved part of the mystery of where marine organisms that recovered from the biggest extinction on earth were housed. A team of researchers, including Charles Henderson, a geoscience professor at the U of C, Tyler Beatty, a PhD candidate at the U of C and J-P Zonneveld, an associate professor at the U of A, discovered that the shorelines of ancient Canada provided a refuge for marine organisms that escaped annihilation during the Permian-Triassic extinction event... Henderson adds that this may not be the only refuge where life survived after the mass extinction, but it is the only area discovered to date. During the Permian, all the world's land masses joined together into a single supercontinent called Pangea. Near the end of the Permian, during the mass extinction, about 95 per cent of all marine species and 70 per cent of land species died and the recovery of life on Earth took longer than other extinction events because so much biodiversity was lost... On land, the Permian period marked the expansion of reptiles and mammal-like reptiles. Perhaps the most famous is Dimetrodon, a pre-dinosaur reptile, which grew to about 11 feet (3.5 metres) and had what looked like a sail on its back.
ScienceDaily
October 2, 2008
Asteroid 'destroyed life 250m years ago'Earth's biggest mass extinction 251 million years ago was triggered by a collision with a comet or asteroid, US scientists say. They have reached this conclusion by looking at atoms from a star trapped inside molecular cages of carbon...
by Dr David Whitehouse
Friday, February 23, 2001
In rock layers laid down at the time, there is a much higher concentration of complex carbon molecules called fullerenes that have different types, or isotopes, of helium and argon trapped inside them. These molecules could only have been delivered from space, the researchers say...
The researchers believe these particular fullerenes are extraterrestrial because the gases trapped inside have an unusual ratio of isotopes that indicate they were made in the atmosphere of a star that exploded before our Sun was born...
The telltale fullerenes were extracted from sites in Japan, China and Hungary, where the sedimentary layer at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods had been exposed...
The research was made difficult because there are few 251-million-year-old rocks left on Earth. Most rocks of that age have been recycled through the planet's tectonic processes...
Researchers estimate the comet or asteroid was six to 12 km (3.7 - 7.4 miles) across, or about the size of the asteroid believed responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs 67 million years ago...
The mass extinction of 251 million years ago was the greatest on record.
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Sorry I’m late...
Sorry I’m late...
..I wish I could tell them to put away their expensive toys and take the time to read EARH IN UPHEAVAL:
http://www.archive.org/stream/earthupheaval010880mbp/earthupheaval010880mbp_djvu.txt
Imperialist SUVs and those plastic capitalist sixpack holders, reaching back through time, devastated the noble and innocent Reduviasporonites...requiring us to implement a new carbon tax regime...
The oldest-known carnivorous fungus on the planet has been found locked within 100-million-year-old amber.December 13, 2007
Nice!
Ironic that the second one was even later. ;’)
How about this one?
Maybe the Scientific Community is starting way back and working forward in time to establish, after bullion$ and bullion$ are garnered in grants etc, that nasty things have happened on our nice little planet in more recent times? What's that about not being able to see the forest, well, never mind...
Thanks for the heads up. Have added Earth in Upheaval to my Favorites list, to read at leisure and compare with my impression 30 years ago when I first read Velikovski’s books.
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