Posted on 08/25/2003 11:12:31 AM PDT by Mike Darancette
A massive methane explosion frothing out of the world's oceans 250 million years ago caused the Earth's worst mass extinction, claims a US geologist.
Similar, smaller-scale events could have happened since, which might explain the Biblical flood, for example, suggests Gregory Ryskin of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois1. And they could happen again: "It's a very conjectural idea but it's too important to ignore," says Ryskin.
Up to 95% of Earth's marine species disapeared at the end of the Permian period. Some 70% of land species, including plants, insects and vertebrates, also perished. "It's arguably the single most important event in biology but there's no consensus as to what happened," says palaeontologist Andrew Knoll of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massacheusetts.
Ryskin contends that methane from bacterial decay or from frozen methane hydrates in deep oceans began to be released. Under the enormous pressure from water above, the gas dissolved in the water at the bottom of the ocean and was trapped there as its concentration grew.
Just one disturbance - a small meteorite impact or even a fast moving mammal - could then have brought the gas-saturated water closer to the surface. Here it would have bubbled out of solution under the reduced pressure. Thereafter the process would have been unstoppable: a huge overturning of the water layers would have released a vast belch of methane.
The oceans could easily have contained enough methane to explode with a force about 10,000 times greater than the world's entire nuclear-weapons stockpile, Ryskin argues. "There would be mortality on a massive scale," he says.
"It's a wacky idea," says geologist Paul Wignall of the University of Leeds, UK, "but not so wild that it shouldn't be taken seriously." There is evidence that the oceans stagnated at the end of the Permian period. And the chemical signature in fossils of the time hints there was a massive change in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide would have been produced as methane broke down or exploded in the atmosphere.
After all, belches of trapped methane from lakes and oceans are "a rare but well-known maritime hazard", Wignall adds.
Flood warning
The same phenomenon could explain more recent events, such as the Biblical flood, Ryskin also argues. An eruption from Europe's stagnant Black Sea would fit the bill. There is even some geological evidence that such an event took place 7,000-8,000 years ago.
Other sluggish seas might still be accumulating methane at their depths and could represent a future hazard, Ryskin adds. "Even if there's only a small probability that I am right, we should start looking for areas of the ocean where this might be happening," he argues.
References 1. Ryskin, G. Methane driven oceanic eruptions and mass extinctions. Geology, 31, 737 - 740, (2003).
(c) Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003
Translation: "It's a wacky idea but give us some research money."
Translation: "C'mon give me some research money, I need to eat"
Cordially,
The bible says it came from Heaven. The word "heaven" in this case doesn't refer to the sky. My assumption by a literal reading is the water that covered the earth came from across the divide that separates this world from heaven.
One could argue theologically that only heaven sourced water could wipe the earth clean from all sin.
Long ago...MMMMMMMillions of yrs ago : )..this and that happened...[I'm a scientist..trust me].
There is a reality abstract known as the 'Electric Universe' model.
Wal Thornhill and company for those interested in going google for a bit.
The accretion planet formation thingy is really lame when it goes in the ring with Electric Universe.
Back to MMMMMMillions of yrs;
Great..Isotope margin values...decay rates.
They did a test on MT ST Helens ash and blew it huge...off by biggy time value rates.
Of course the scientist will say the K/T boundry has been tested by so many radio formats to come out over 98% accurate and consistant.
But radio dating has been shown to be flawed...and many of these claims to what went on so long ago..could be principly flawed by huge time intervals.
Why?
Well...planets may not form under the accretion format..but by the Electric Universe model.
This means planets are **Mangled to the core..by electrical activty in Space.
Plasma sheaths of planets..comets..asteroids...Electrical energy ribbons with values that would begger the imagination.
Currents of varied form streaming thru space...magnetic fields of huge magnitude.
All out there..just waiting to touch a little Blue sphere like ours..and send the inner core into convection like a microwave set on high.
Little Blue Sphere see's enertial movement in its core...energy values transit outward...crust buckles...gas forms..gases escape.
Rock undergoes transforamtion at the atomic level..reconfigures.
All manner of atomic particles dispensed into the outlaying regions above the spheres crust.
particles combining..reconfiguring.
Magnetic signatures changing in the rock layers of the planet...atomic values of the rocks imprinted anew.
oh well....slow tortoise accretion..mmmmmillions of yrs thingy...
or the Electric Universe..and biggy change..sudden like.
A methane Burp obliterates a planets life continuity?
Intersting article...except the Methane would have a hard time "Staying put with the Tidal forces of the **Moon..and other passing bodies.
Or are they suggesting that 250 Million yrs ago..there was no Moon?
course too...they are right if they suggest that..as Mythology states that their was a period in mans ancient recollection..when there was no moon.
Infact..the Ancient city on **The seashore..of Tiahuanaco
also know as 'The City of the Falling Moon' supports such said abstract.
Tiahuanaco in the Andes..thrust upward in a cataclysm that beggers the imagination...20,000..Posnanski 12,000...pick a date.
Major Energy and gravametric distortion values at work...in the time of man record keeping.
Pangea..Gondwana...good by MU Lemura..etc.
This may really be true..and sure it runs offset to ..MMMMillions of years.
but it only does..if our Universe is the accretion model,
and that projection could be wrong....very wrong : )
Just don't light a match.
When continents collide, the rock formations break, are forced up on their sides, and ancient deep sedimentary rock becomes the mountaintop. A good example of this would be the Himalayas.
They don't want to. Their goal is to drive humans to extinction, so natural disasters are their friends.
Or go out and visit the Maroon Bells outside of Aspen, which are composed of red rock sediments washed off the Ancestral Rockies and then uplifted.
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