Re: News: Stinking seas not to blame for 'mother of all mass

On 2008-03-24, Robert Karl Stonjek <rstonjek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Stinking seas not to blame for 'mother of all mass extinctions'

Scientists on Sunday said they had ruled out a key hypothesis to explain
Earth's greatest extinction, when 95 percent of marine species and 70
percent of land species were wiped out.

Dubbed "the Great Dying" or "the mother of all mass extinctions," the
catastrophe occurred around 250 million years ago at the end of the Permian
era.

The event may have unfolded over millions of years, and an increasing number
of clues testify to its severity, include the discovery worldwide of eerie,
fossilised, mutant plant spores. What is unclear, though, is what caused it.


[snip]

On this, see Douglas H. Erwin, "Extinction: How life nearly ended 250
million years ago" Princeton University Press, 2006).

There were in fact two Permian extinctions, separated by about 10
million years: one at the mid-Permian and the second, bigger one, at the
very end of the Permian. Little is known about the first event.

Erwin says that ten years ago he believed the end-Permian extinction was
a long-drawn-out affair but now he thinks he was wrong and it occurred
abruptly, though how abruptly is uncertain.

Erwin doesn't know why the extinction occurred. He outlines all the competing
theories and offers his own favourite solution, which is really a
combination of possibilities.

Anthony


--
Anthony Campbell - ac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews,
on-line books and sceptical articles)


.

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