Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 01/23/2011 12:15:09 PM PST by decimon
Massive volcanic eruption, burning coal and accelerated greenhouse gas choked out life
About 250 million years about 95 per cent of life was wiped out in the sea and 70 per cent on land. Researchers at the University of Calgary believe they have discovered evidence to support massive volcanic eruptions burnt significant volumes of coal, producing ash clouds that had broad impact on global oceans.
"This could literally be the smoking gun that explains the latest Permian extinction," says Dr. Steve Grasby, adjunct professor in the University of Calgary's Department of Geoscience and research scientist at Natural Resources Canada.
Grasby and colleagues discovered layers of coal ash in rocks from the extinction boundary in Canada's High Arctic that give the first direct proof to support this and have published their findings in Nature Geoscience.
Unlike end of dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, where there is widespread belief that the impact of a meteorite was at least the partial cause, it is unclear what caused the late Permian extinction. Previous researchers have suggested massive volcanic eruptions through coal beds in Siberia would generate significant greenhouse gases causing run away global warming.
"Our research is the first to show direct evidence that massive volcanic eruptions – the largest the world has ever witnessed –caused massive coal combustion thus supporting models for significant generation of greenhouse gases at this time," says Grasby.
At the time of the extinction, the Earth contained one big land mass, a supercontinent known as Pangaea. The environment ranged from desert to lush forest. Four-limbed vertebrates were becoming more diverse and among them were primitive amphibians, early reptiles and synapsids: the group that would, one day, include mammals.
The location of volcanoes, known as the Siberian Traps, are now found in northern Russia, centred around the Siberian city Tura and also encompass Yakutsk, Noril'sk and Irkutsk. They cover an area just under two-million-square kilometers, a size greater than that of Europe. The ash plumes from the volcanoes traveled to regions now in Canada's arctic where coal-ash layers where found.
Grasby studied the formations with Dr. Benoit Beauchamp, a professor in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Calgary. They called upon Dr. Hamed Sanei adjunct professor at the University of Calgary and a researcher at NRCan to look at some of peculiar organic layers they had discovered.
"We saw layers with abundant organic matter and Hamed immediately determined that they were layers of coal-ash, exactly like that produced by modern coal burning power plants," says Beauchamp.
Sanei adds: "Our discovery provides the first direct confirmation for coal ash during this extinction as it may not have been recognized before."
The ash, the authors suggest, may have caused even more trouble for a planet that was already heating up with its oceans starting to suffocate because of decreasing oxygen levels.
"It was a really bad time on Earth. In addition to these volcanoes causing fires through coal, the ash it spewed was highly toxic and was released in the land and water, potentially contributing to the worst extinction event in earth history," says Grasby.
I'd rather be drawn-and-quartered.
I tend to think all the mass extinctions were due to a combination of factors. At the time of the Chixalub impact things were looking pretty bleak for dinosaurs already. The indian subcontinent was experiencing a massive mantle plume eruption, the number of dinosaur species were already dwindling, The climate was changing, and a wave of radiation from a supernova was passing through our neighborhood around that time.
A being capable of creating the entire Universe is not capable of salting his creation with a few fossils?
Personally I think it is a 'dating' problem. I do not doubt the find. I do not believe in the truncated events over impossible to prove eons of years. I believe there was one 'time-frame' over a consecutive span of time that caused this earth to become waste.
I bet they found Suv’s and coal fired power plants, and maybe a prehistoric coal powered Chevy Volt.
Not even close.
Wyoming produces more coal than the whole Appalachian Region (and almost the whole US) combined. There's even more under the ground in Montana, but nobody wants to mine there because it's a big union state.
Have a look for yourself: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/acr_sum.html
The Earth itself is about 4.6 billion years old.
From Steve Jones' "Darwin's Ghost," we have on page 195 ...
"The evidence comes not from our own planet, but from its satellite. The Moon flew off its parent after a giant impact. Because it stayed small, cold and undisturbed it gives a better picture of the past than its parent. A quick trip by the Apollo XI mission was enough to date it."
http://fossil.energy.gov/education/energylessons/coal/gen_howformed.html
Contrary to what many people believe, fossil fuels are not the remains of dead dinosaurs. In fact, most of the fossil fuels we find today were formed millions of years before the first dinosaurs.
snip
Coal formed from the dead remains of trees, ferns and other plants that lived 300 to 400 million years ago. In some areas, such as portions of what-is-now the eastern United States, coal was formed from swamps covered by sea water.
I’m torn between either Bush or Palin as being responsible for this.
It’s obviously an un-holy alliance of the two.
I have yet to find any evidence that anyone knows exactly how old this earth literally is. I can accept the number in billions of years, but I would not stake my life as to the literal number.
I agree this earth is very very old, but I do not put much credibility in any who claim a specific age. Most especially when an 'age' of anything is then used as claimed evidence for the fairy 'tail' of evolution.
Aha! I knew it! Those dinosaurs were EEEEEVVVVIIIILLLLL!!! You can see it in their eyes!
Coal is the remnants of decayed vegetative material not dinosaur.
If made past elementary school and did not know that you should have a serious talk with your school board.
Some brilliant scientists who had just cloned a man, thinking then they could do it from scratch, challenged God to a “man creating” challenge.
So, God got his pile of dirt ready for the contest. - The scientists started piling up their pile of dirt.
God reportedly said, “Oh no you don’t! You’ll have to get your own dirt!”
Try and laugh if off, but there is no excuse for getting such a basic scientific question incorrect.
And still creationist wonder why the rest of the educated world mocks them.
God is dishonest?
Amazingly enough, considering how long ago this happened, this was also George W. Bush’s fault. It was because he didn’t care about Eskimos.
That sir is a very funny joke worthy of an obamaboid defending unions or the health care bill
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.