A very informative and thought-provoking book on the Permian Extinction and possible causes.
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
Oh, bullbiscuits. Everyone knows that all the Dimetrodons got big honkin' SUVs and that led to the increase in CO2 and eventually the Permian extinction.
Seriously, there has been concern for some time about the possibility of a sudden, rapid release of methane from hydrates. However, recall that in the Bible it rained for 40 days and 40 nights to trigger the flood, there is no mention of the largest cosmic flatulence of all time.
They'd probably try to light a joint while the methane was erupting...
That's because Teddy "The Swimmer" Kennedy hadn't been born yet.
A very informative and thought-provoking book on the Permian Extinction and possible causes.
"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."
A Clive Cussler novel wherein the villain has a plan to use methane hydrates off the coast of the North America to destroy the United States.
So, the mass extinction could have been caused by a mammal. Fish are NOT implicated, everyone! No need to panic! No fish, no reptiles are responsible for this catastophe! It's either an asteroid, or a mammal, and we're betting it's a mammal -- they always mess up the environment.
And it is all Bush Fault!
I read a book a few years back on the same subject, but this was not it. I cannot recall the title.
Regards,
CD
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