Posted on 02/26/2006 9:39:21 PM PST by tbird5
A mysterious cataclysm almost brought about the end of the world some 250 million years ago
The last time Earth experienced a mass extinction, some 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, there is little doubt about what happened. A humongous meteor slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula, incinerating everything around for thousands of miles. Plumes of vaporized rock blanketed the planet in a layer of thick ash, blocking the sun and choking off photosynthesis. The entire global ecosystem virtually collapsed in a geological eye-blink.
Though the dinosaurs might find it crass to say so, the late Cretaceous cataclysm that did them in was a planetary bad hair day compared to the mass extinction that occurred some 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. The Permian event is probably the closest that life on Earth ever came to being completely extinguished. Around 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrates were wiped out -- a greater percentage of the Earth's species than the next two largest mass extinctions combined. The break in the fossil record at the Permian boundary is so severe that 19th-century geologists saw it as evidence of two completely separate creations of life.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
But in Texican it means "mobile speedbump".
Another fascinating account of the Permian extinction is the book "When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of all Time," by Michael J. Benton, 2003.
A fascinating coincidence is that both end periods had huge outpourings of lava associated with them. The Deccan Traps of India are more than 300 miles square and 9,000 feet thick. I recently encountered a reference to a new discovery called the Shiva Crater in the Indian Ocean, west of India that is 600 by 400 kilometers, also with the age 65 million years ago. This is far larger than the 180 km diameter crater along Yucatan. The two together if the Shiva Crater proves out on further examination would really have messed up the neighborhood. The Shiva event could have caused massive cracks in the Indian land mass, allowing lava to pour out.
The Siberian Traps of the end Permian are as large as the US and as thick as the Deccan Traps. In 2001 a new possible crater was identified in the ocean off Australia. Of course there could have been more than one, scientists will continue to search.
A third fascinating crater event has been identified recently. That is the Chesapeake Meteor which has been described in detail by C. Wylie Poag in "Chesapeake Invader: Discovering America's Giant Meteorite Crater," 1999. This 50 mile diameter crater has its lower edge in Norfolk and its northern point at Exmore on the Delmarva Peninsula. If you look at a map you will see that the rivers flowing into the West side of the Chesapeake have a little jog in them. This is the western edge of the crater.
This crater formed 34 million years ago, coincided with the death of about 50% of the major life forms. There is also a 50 mile wide crater in north west Siberia, Popigai, of the same age, and a 9 mile wide crater off Toms River, NJ.
There is so much to still be discovered!!
"It seems the Spaniards landed there in 1520, and said (in Spanish): "What is this place called?" To which the local inhabitants naturally responded: "Yectetan!"..."
God, I love Colonialism "jokes." Nothing makes Europeans look dumber, other than the destruction of numerous civilizations, than this stuff.
"Van Nuys!"
--Alan Sherman
"Nothing makes Europeans look dumber, other than the destruction of numerous civilizations..."
Well, where I come from, when referring to the heart-out-ripping Aztec idiots, "thems needed killin'."
Change "could have been" to "probably was"--see Shoemaker-Levy at Jupiter for an eyewitness account to the same type of thing.
Most people on this thread give Mrs. William Jefferson Blythe Clinton too much credit.
She's just a lousy spear carrier in the legions of evil.
You know I thought of something else. For how Europeans (Eh em, the English) treated the "lower" people, you need to look no further than the Emerald Isle itself and how the Irish were subjugated out of land property and political rights for only about three hundred years.
Can anyone say potato famine, or the flight of the geese, in Irish?
I'm a spud famine Irish myself. But you can't deny that British treatment of the "wogs" (outside of Ireland) didn't come anywhere near as bad as that of the French, the Germans, or God forbid, the Belgians in the Congo.....
I love the way German strings together a bunch of existing words, rather than create a new word, or borrow one from another language:
panzerkampfwagen- "armored war wagon" (tank)
schutzenpanzerwagen "assault armored wagon" (APC)
fliegerabwehrkanone "air defense cannon" (AA gun)
And then, to save writing these jawbreaker words out, they abbreviate- PzKfw, Spw, FlAk (the last is where we get "flak" for antiaircraft fire.)
Sorta like putting the beakers in an autoclave!!!
From my reading of history, it is reported that enslaving the indigenous residents of the "new world" was proven to be an abject failure during the 16th and 17th centuries! It seems that their will to survive collapsed upon enslavement!!!
It was (as most events are) an economically driven decision to purchase african slaves from arab slave-traders and import them to the "new world"!
The "indentured servants" who essentially sold themselves into slavery for a defined period of time (reminiscent of employees loyal to an employer for a pension???), proved far more productive and less problematic than other labor sources BUT they were in much shorter supply and required far more finesse in their management!
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