Methane Thought To Be Responsible For Mass Extinction

ScienceDaily ^ | 28 August 2003 | Gregory Ryskin

[PatrickHenry]

What caused the worst mass extinction in Earth's history 251 million years ago? An asteroid or comet colliding with Earth? A greenhouse effect? Volcanic eruptions in Siberia? Or an entirely different culprit? A Northwestern University chemical engineer believes the culprit may be an enormous explosion of methane (natural gas) erupting from the ocean depths.

In an article published in the September issue of Geology, Gregory Ryskin, associate professor of chemical engineering, suggests that huge combustible clouds produced by methane gas trapped in stagnant bodies of water and suddenly released could have killed off the majority of marine life and land animals and plants at the end of the Permian era -- long before dinosaurs lived and died.

The mechanism also might explain other extinctions and climate perturbations (ice ages) and even the Biblical flood, as well as be the cause of future catastrophes.

Ryskin calculated that some 10,000 gigatons of dissolved methane could have accumulated in water near the ocean floor under high pressure. If released quickly, perhaps triggered by an earthquake, the resulting cloud of methane would have an explosive force about 10,000 times greater than the world's entire stockpile of nuclear weapons. The huge conflagrations plus flooding and overturned oceans would cause the extinctions. (Approximately 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species were lost.)

"That amount of energy is absolutely staggering," said Ryskin. "As soon as one accepts this mechanism, it becomes clear that if it happened once it could happen again. I have little doubt there will be another methane-driven eruption -- though not on the same scale as 251 million years ago -- unless humans intervene."

[PatrickHenry]

The abstract for the original paper:

DOI: 10.1130/G19518.1
Geology: Vol. 31, No. 9, pp. 741–744.

Methane-driven oceanic eruptions and mass extinctions
Gregory Ryskin

Department of Chemical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA

Manuscript Received by the Society 20 January 2003
Revised Manuscript Received 29 May 2003
Manuscript Accepted 2 June 2003

ABSTRACT

Focusing on the Permian-Triassic boundary, ca. 251 Ma, I explore the possibility that mass extinction can be caused by an extremely fast, explosive release of dissolved methane (and other dissolved gases such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide) that accumulated in the oceanic water masses prone to stagnation and anoxia (e.g., in silled basins). The mechanism of the explosive release is the same as in the Lake Nyos disaster of 1986, i.e., a water-column eruption caused by the interplay of buoyancy forces and exsolution of dissolved gas. The eruption brings to the surface deep anoxic waters that cause extinctions in the marine realm. Terrestrial extinctions are caused by explosions and conflagrations that follow the massive release of methane (the air-methane mixture is explosive at methane concentrations between 5% and 15%) and by the eruption-triggered floods. This scenario accounts well for the available data, and may be relevant to other phenomena.

Keywords: mass extinctions, methane, Permian-Triassic boundary.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Methane? Oh no! I hope I don't cause a mass ex-stink-tion here, too!

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[dc-zoo]

So it appears the sh*t really did hit the fan.

[Pharmboy]

Phew! Whatta way to go!!

Frenchman on parapet: "I fart in your general direction!"

[Eva]

Interesting theory, it's the first I heard of that one.

[general_re]

Authorities have released a photograph of a man wanted for questioning...

[PatrickHenry]

Two thoughts. (1) I wonder if the author received his inspiration for this theory while relaxing in the bathtub? (2) In contrast to this methane extinction, the Biblical Flood was a pleasant way to go.

[mhking]

Dinosaur farts?!?! Zillions of dollars poured into research and the best they can come up with is dinosaur farts!?

Just damn.

If you want on the new list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

[dead]

Sunday morning methane has caused a couple chicks to stop dating me, so it has hampered my reproductive options.

[almcbean]

Here's a fun game to play when you see these "scientific" articles dealing with origins-count the number of fudge words and phrases such as "suggests", "maybe", "could have" etc.

I'll resist the temptaion to make flatulence jokes.

[PatrickHenry]

It looks like any thread with "methane" in the title will draw posts as fast as one with "moose" or "cheese." This is a very strange website.

[TRY ONE]

2050 --- Global Warming: "Approximately 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species were lost."

No, wait a minute, that was 150,000,000 BC!!!!!!

How can that be? Did all that sh*t come back to life? So we don't have to worry about Global Warming ..... we can recycle all that sh*t!!!

[sheik yerbouty]

Flatulence kills!

[Junior]

Ex-stink-tion placemarker.

[Cobra64]

"What caused the worst mass extinction in Earth's history 251 million years ago?"

It was George W. Bush. Howard Dean told me so; and John Kerry confirmed it. Sheesh!

[ErnBatavia]

That picture reminds me of "Barney", a big fat corporal in our USMC barracks. Barney would go out and get totally wasted on an almost nightly basis; his 'next morning' routine was to toss his bath towel over his shoulder and nakedly undulate toward the shower room.....and with each and every step he'd squeeze off a loud poot - all the way down the squadbay.

Hilarious!

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Not outside the realm of possibility

[4mycountry]

;)

[Post Toasties]

"That amount of energy is absolutely staggering," said Ryskin. "As soon as one accepts this mechanism, it becomes clear that if it happened once it could happen again. I have little doubt there will be another methane-driven eruption -- though not on the same scale as 251 million years ago -- unless humans intervene."

Never considered that a performing a global version of an adolescent trick might save life as we know it.