Scientists Uncover 'Deep Impact' Disaster From Space

Ananova ^ | 6-12-2003

[blam]

Scientists uncover 'deep impact' disaster from space

A new report suggests that a massive object from space smashed into what is now the Moroccan desert 380 million years ago, wiping out 40% of the world's marine species.

The discovery adds to the evidence linking such impacts with mass extinction events.

Only one other impact by a large comet or asteroid has convincingly been held responsible for a mass extinction.

That occurred off the Yucatan peninsular in Mexico 65 million years ago and is thought to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs.

The newly discovered impact coincided with the Kacak/otomari extinction, when up to 40% of all animals living in the sea perished.

A team of scientists led by Brooks Ellwood, from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, USA, found the evidence while studying Devonian rock formations in the Moroccan desert.

Carbon isotope ratios, mineral concentrations, and rock deformations were similar to those seen in Yucatan and other impact crater sites.

Writing in the journal Science, the team said: "The impact is important because it is coincident with a major global extinction event (Kacak/otomari event), suggesting a possible cause-and-effect relation between the impact and the extinction.

"The result may represent the extinction of as many as 40% of all living marine animal genera."

Fossils found in rock layers just above the impact layer suggest that many new species appeared after the disaster.

The evidence strengthens support for the idea that multiple catastrophes shaped the evolution of life on Earth.

Story filed: 19:14 Thursday 12th June 2003

[blam]

One day, the mainstream will get around to validating that smaller impacts were the cause of the decline/collapse of numerous prehistoric human civilizations.

[somemoreequalthanothers]

One day, the mainstream may realize that 'prehistoric man' was not some ape-thing with its knuckles dragging the ground......about the same time they solve the mysteries of the Great Pyramid.......

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Another interesting post, blam...But, but, but, I thought it was the SUVs, hot air, and rising oceans that were going to wipe us out.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC SPOTREP

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

UHERH ESWA

[Lazamataz]

One day, the mainstream will get around to validating that smaller impacts were the cause of the decline/collapse of numerous prehistoric human civilizations.

Additionally, the impact of micrometeors can be associated with many of my own personal worst days.

[Tunehead54]

YEC SPOTREP

UHERH ESWA

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WTFDTSM?

;-)

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

It is interesting how catastrophism is coming back.

[PatrioticAmerican]

"WTFDTSM? "

ROTFLMAO!!!

[Phsstpok]

It appears that the impact events / extinction events are happening roughly every 65-70 million years. You have the Chuxulub event (the KT dinausor killer), the impact swarm 130 million years ago, the Triasic extinction 195 million years ago, the "great dying" 260 million years ago at the end of the Permian and beginning of the Triasic. Beginning to see a pattern? This is close to double the periodicity of our solar system's passing through the galactic plane, which occurs about every 35 million years (we are currently going 7 km/s in the direction of galactic "north"). that would indicate that there's something bad that happens every time we pass from south of the plane of our galaxy to north of it, but it doesn't seem to affect us as much when we go north to south. I wonder what the heck that means.

My great theory is that we have times of more... stuff, yeah, stuff... and times of less stuff. Right now, we're entering into a time of more stuff. This affects not just natural disasters, such as impacts or volcanoes, but I also believe that it affect life, such as us, in the way we act and interact. And when the stuff hits the fan, as it is doing now in human events, we will also see great upheavels in natural events. More impacts, more volcanoes, more hurricanes, more wars, etc. It is a general increase in energy, increase in entropy, increase in... stuff.

Now, the question is, do you have your stuff together, or is it time to duck, cause the stuff is running downhill, straight at us?

[The Shootist]

I always knew that the Hyperborian Age would be discovered by some keen observer. Or are you talking about Hogan and Velikovsky and the "First Dark Age"?

[Tench_Coxe]

Can nip that in the bud real quick. All someone has to do is write the accounts in a religious text and immediately have that pushed back into oscurity.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

YEC SPOTREP

UHERH ESWA

WTFDTSM?

JIONE....#$8W#%!!!...GIJENI?

[blam]

"Or are you talking about Hogan and Velikovsky and the "First Dark Age"?"

No, I was thinking more like, Clube, Napier, Steel, Bailey and Baillie. See the example below.

The Dark Ages: Were They Darker Than We Imagined?

[blam]

...And this:

Did Asteroids And Comets Change The Tides Of Civilization?

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[Lessismore]

From Science

Devonian Death From Outer Space

Nobody doubts that a 15-kilometer-wide asteroid slammed into Earth 65 million years ago. And most scientists agree that the environmental fallout from this impact wiped out the dinosaurs. But convincing evidence connecting other mass extinctions to asteroid impacts has been elusive. Now, a team of researchers has uncovered persuasive evidence in the Moroccan desert of an impact 380 million years ago that may have cut marine biodiversity during the Devonian Period, nearly in half.

About a decade ago, geophysicist Brooks Ellwood of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge was studying the magnetic properties of 380-million-year-old rocks in the Moroccan desert for another project, when he noticed a strange pattern in the rock layers. Years later while visiting Gubbio, Italy, he found the same magnetic pattern in rocks that record evidence of the dinosaur-killing impact at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary 65 million years ago: There was a sharp magnetic change in the rock layer at the boundary caused by heavy metals in the impact debris. This led him to wonder if the pattern in the Moroccan rocks could have been caused by an impact as well.

When Ellwood and colleagues returned to Morocco they found several pieces of evidence that are very similar to those found at the K-T boundary: high concentrations of nickel, chromium, cobalt, arsenic, and vanadium; a drastic change in the carbon isotope ratio; tiny bits of material called microspherules and microcrysts that formed in the atmosphere from rapidly cooling impact debris; and quartz containing shock fractures that are typically formed by a huge, catastrophic event such as an impact. The most exciting aspect of the discovery, described in the 13 June issue of Science, is that the apparent impact would have preceded one of the five biggest extinctions ever. Known as the Kacák/otomari event, the Devonian extinction didn't have much of an effect on life on land but had a global impact on marine animals, decimating the reef ecosystems.

"Evidence is beginning to mount for coupling extinction events to extraterrestrial causes," says geochemist Luann Becker of the University of California, Santa Barbara. But the researchers need to show similar evidence for the impact on different continents that would indicate a global effect, she says. "There's still no real smoking gun."

See also Brooks Elwood's web site http://www.geol.lsu.edu/department/faculty/ellwood

[Tunehead54]

See # 9 - Res ipsa loquitor?

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;-)

[Travis McGee]

Could be. Interesting supposition.

BTW, I really enjoy your wide ranging and eclectic taste in posting subjects.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

IT"S MOOSE CODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!