Study says global warming cause of extinction, not asteroid

[Starbucks]

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5544264.html

Two hundred and fifty million years ago, the majority of life on earth may have suffocated.

The "Great Dying," a catastrophic event that killed 90 percent of Earth's marine life and 75 percent of the life on land, was caused by a combination of warmer temperatures and lower oxygen levels, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Washington.

In other words, the extinction was precipitated by global warming, rather than an asteroid collision, the reigning theory.

The findings, to be published in the magazine Science, are largely based on comparisons of fossils found in South Africa's Karoo Basin and in China. Chemical, biological and magnetic materials found in the fossils from both sites are quite similar. Further, there is a lack of evidence in the Karoo fossils pointing to a sudden collision between planetary objects.

"The marine extinction and the land extinction appear to be simultaneous, based on the geochemical evidence we found," paleontologist Peter Ward said in a statement. "Animals and plants both on land and in the sea were dying at the same time, and apparently from the same causes--too much heat and too little oxygen."

Ward believes that continuous volcanic eruptions from an area known as the Siberian Traps bathed the planet in methane, which warmed temperatures. Concurrently, oxygen levels in the atmosphere dropped to 16 percent, the equivalent of living on a 14,000-foot mountain.

Scientists and the public have debated the causes and dangers of global warming for years. While a number of scientists believe that global temperatures rise and fall in cycles, many believe human activity is currently contributing to an upward spike in temperatures.

Either way, things are getting warmer. A spring-summer sea lane running across the top of Siberia is expected to open in a few years.

The mass extinction occurred at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods at a time when all land was concentrated in a supercontinent called Pangaea. The dinosaurs went extinct at a later time, but many reptiles expired in the Permian extinction. Later, the Permian creatures were reincarnated as Texas crude oil.

[Cognition]

Must've built too many factories.

[S-uper_T-oast]

Or it could have been the asteroid causing global warming.
Global warming = boring
asteroid = uber cool

[Cognition]

Obviously the huge asteroid craters were also created by global warming.

[Wolfgang]

Chemical, biological and magnetic materials found in the fossils from both sites are quite similar.

Seems a bit far-fetched to conclude that it was global warming from that.

Either way, things are getting warmer. A spring-summer sea lane running across the top of Siberia is expected to open in a few years.

D'you hear, Bush Administration, Inc. ????

[Budgie2005]

Old fool ranting away here: smile and ignore please.

So lets see now. The earth is what? 3.5 billion years old and we've got about 2000 years of fairly accurate written history and other histories of poor quality going back another maybe 3000 years.

We just discovered "plate techonics " in the 60's.

The Van Halen Belts in the 70's ?

Hell! Pluto in the 40's

We not only don't know anything ...we don't even know yet what we don't know.

Our recorded human knowledge log of earth "normal processes" is not even 1 - 1/millionth of the earth's actual weather/geological events.

We know still almost nothing about nothing of the "normal" processes of this earth of ours.

So global warming (mankind induced) is a joke.

One little ripple in the Indian Ocean and we lost 150,000 people. We don't even know if that was
A) a big or small earthquake (relative to the earth's age)
B)if it will happen again next/week/year/century/whatever.

The present warming of the earth may be a completely Normal event in a long line of events.

Ice Age or Global warming...I'll take the later Thanks.

By the way those Siberian Lava sheets are as large or larger than Texas and they think they happened almost overnight.

and . . . by the way there are similar sheets in USA.

Rant done - sleep now.

Nice to see discussion on this BTW.

Old Fool Out.

[Cognition]

That is a good argument, contrary to the hordes of people going on about global warming every day. I'm not saying we should go out and pollute and ruin the world or anything, but even the basic argument that the Earth is heating up they're not sure of.

At one stage they were measuring average temperature from a satellite, and it seemed to be getting hotter. Then they realised they forgot to factor in that the satellite would orbit slightly lower each year. Now the Earth was getting colder.

Or global warming might be a natural thing anyway, like the one that apparently killed the dinosaurs here. Or maybe they *did* build too many factories.

And there'll be no amazon rainforest by, what, the year 2000 or something? What they don't mention is that it also grows back extremely fast (not that they should cut it down anyway). I remember watching a video in High School in about 2001, where it said there'd be no forests in some part of Indonesia (Borneo I think) by the year 2000. Maybe they started cutting them down less, but there's still a lot of forest there.

This book is a very good read. Read the reviews of it. It basically challenges all the vague and unsupported statements made about global issues and checks them with the real facts, and the results are often nothing like they say.

As I said, don't go out an cut down forests and pollute the world, but do be skeptical about what you're told as well.

[Budgie2005]

Thanks for your courteous response to my comments.

We need to all form our own opinions on issues.

I fully agree as to the need to slow down the wasting of this fragile earth's resources.

One hundred more year of oil left! In this SUV crazy culture! I don’t think so! We are (some say) already involved in world wide OIL wars. My jury is still out on that.

The Amazon is a (is thee?) major provider of the moisture that hits Europe and it’s the forests that generates the moisture . Three years crops failures in a row would destroy the Europe population food support base and forests take a bit longer to grow then that.

The oceans can no longer support the drain of eatable species and global large scale fish farming is required to support world demand for protein.



So yes, let’s just slow down a bit and take stock global human resource base inventory position.

At least until we have have our dna egg gene pools on 1/2 dozen other inhabitable rocks.
But this rock will always - always! be our best fit, 2.5 billion years of evolution (is that a dirty word here?) . . . has seen to that fact.


But back on subject. Take a look at a satellite shot of Quebec gang.
There is one crater there that shows up clear as a bell and ring this earth's bell it did when it hit.

At Three Rivers Quebec , they have earthquakes.

There is an ancient meteor crater (filled) hit spot there, that shattered the earth's crust. The darn spot is still settling and causes the earthquakes. There are also numerous crater strikes across the planet not even closely examined yet . . . anyone of them a multi species extinction capable candidate.

Thanks for listening.

Old fool.ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

PS .How can you tell I've nothing better to do an a Sat night?