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
The polar regions.
Why do you assume that it is Mt. Ararat in Turkey that the ark rested upon? The Bible mentions the mountains of Ararat, but the mountain in Turkey was not historically named Ararat. Ararat was a more recent naming.
In fact, the word 'ararat' means 'the curse reversed'. Therefore the Ark rested on the mountains when the curse had been reversed.
There is only one verse in the Bible which gives us a hint of where we the ark came to rest, "the ark rested...upon the mountains of Ararat." Genesis 8:4. Where is Ararat? The name Ararat is a large area or ancient country covering eastern Turkey, western Iran and western Russia. "The name Ararat, as it appears in the Bible, is the Hebrew equivalent of ...Uratu, ancient country of southwest Asia...mentioned in Assyrian sources from the early 13th century BC" Encyclopaedia Britanica 15th ed. Some have mistakenly assumed the Bible meant the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat (Agri Dagh), but that is not the case. Mount Ararat is 17,000 feet tall, and is a post-Flood volcanic mountain that gained its extra height after the Flood, therefore there is no reason to assume it is a more likely candidate for the resting place of the ark. The ark came to rest in the mountains of the ancient country of Uratu, not Mt. Ararat.
My question has nothing to do with religious faith. It is a question of historicity, i.e. what happened? I do not understand the point of your water volume calculations.
Cordially,
When you take a cube of Sulfur rich material almost 9 miles on a side and eject it 10-20 miles into the air in one explosive event as happened with the Toba Caldera 74,000 years ago you can expect very bad things to happen.
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You can dig brimstone out of the clay along the Red Sea and dead sea, its sulfur basically and burns if ignited with a flame.
You are the guy who is sending me those nonsensical Viagra e-mails aren't you? Please stop, you are getting on my nerves.
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See now, there you go. Getting all rational on us.
I want one of those T shorts that says “Stop Plate Tectonics!”
:D
“You couldn’t fill a 128-bit storage pool without boiling the oceans.”
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