Posted on 03/09/2006 11:57:34 AM PST by blam
I'm sticking with the meteorite impact theory.
It's those geosynchronous comets dropping alien rain in India I tell ya.
I keep trying to tell you people that the Earth is trying to kill us. It started this fight for survival and it's about time we started fighting back.
It all started when T-Rex's starting dumping their volkswagons and stuck with Hummers and SUVs and poluted the earth so badly that greenhouse gases increased and the ice caps melted and...
The 65M years ago event looks certainly to have been caused by a meteorite impact.
Possibly one or more of the older events might have been volcanic.
What would be the effect if a large meteor hit the Yellow Stone super Volcano area?
It is just a coincidence that a very large rock hit the Earth at just the time that huge volcanic events took place?
I don't think so. There probably is a causal relationship between the two events. There is still the question as to why the geologic record shows such a dramatic decrease of life right after the KT boundary layer.
Probably pretty bad. But it is believed that an impact 17 mya caused the Yellowstone hot spot in the first place.
To the degree the article actually quotes the scientists, it doesn't seem to be a 'one size fits all' proposition in their minds.
And I don't think Alvarez ever hypothesized that meteor impacts explain every extinction, did he?
Journalists just can't get interested unless there's 'conflict', even if they have to fabricate it.
No kidding? I've never heard this before.
Now, I have heard that a comet fragment may have caused the Thera eruption in 1628BC.
How about an impact, which not only clouds over the planet, but also triggers a lot of extra eruptions that put the noxious gases under an insulating blanket which allows both phenomena to multiply the overall effects?
Actually the theory is you get a hotspot and flood basalt on the OPPOSITE side of the planet from the asteroid impact, through focusing of seismic energy.
It's been out there for a while, and the people behind it aren't kooks, but it's not widely accepted. There are some interesting "line ups" of large impacts with hotspots on the other side of the world.
One fly in the ointment is that it's now pretty clear that hotspots aren't perfectly stationary in the mantle with the plates moving over them; the hotspots themselves move some.
Actually the idea of impacts causing a hotspot on the opposite side of the earth has been around a long time...
This is a PDF paper from Sandia National Labs about it in 1994..
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/servlets/purl/10197028-5vKwmj/webviewable/10197028.pdf
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"The largest flood basalts on Earth (Siberian Traps and Deccan Traps) coincide with the largest extinctions (end-Permian, and end-Cretaceous). 'Pure coincidence?', ask Saunders and Reichow."
The iridium anomalies at various paleontological boundaries exceed the amount of iridium available in the nether regions of the Earth, and yet iridium is common in extraterrestrial trash. 'Pure coincidence?' asks Blam, Civ, and anyone else with functioning brain cells.
Hummmmm, another theory, wonder which one is right.
So9
One thing seldom mentioned, is that the Chixulub impact was right on the edge of the coast.
Imaging how much steam would be generated as a ocean tried to pour into a 120 mile wide white hot crater.
It's the recipe for a pastureized plannet...
No, but in T-Rex and the Crater of Doom, he did suggest that geologists should look for more evidence of giant impacts at extinction boundaries.
Very good book BTW...
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