Date and Rate of Earth's Most Extreme Extinction Pinpointed

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (Nov. 17, 2011) — It's well known that Earth's most severe mass extinction occurred about 250 million years ago. What's not well known is the specific time when the extinctions occurred. A team of researchers from North America and China have published a paper in Science which explicitly provides the date and rate of extinction.

"This is the first paper to provide rates of such massive extinction," says Dr. Charles Henderson, professor in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Calgary and co-author of the paper: Calibrating the end-Permian mass extinction. "Our information narrows down the possibilities of what triggered the massive extinction and any potential kill mechanism must coincide with this time."

About 95 percent of marine life and 70 percent of terrestrial life became extinct during what is known as the end-Permian, a time when continents were all one land mass called Pangea. The environment ranged from desert to lush forest. Four-limbed vertebrates were becoming diverse and among them were primitive amphibians, reptiles and a group that would, one day, include mammals.

Through the analysis of various types of dating techniques on well-preserved sedimentary sections from South China to Tibet, researchers determined that the mass extinction peaked about 252.28 million years ago and lasted less than 200,000 years, with most of the extinction lasting about 20,000 years.

more

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111117143955.htm

[dipsydoodle]

1. I bet it was 4 o'clock on a Friday

Just in time to fuck the weekend up.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. '...the trigger, as suggested by these researchers and others...'

'... was the massive release of CO2 from volcanic flows known as the Siberian traps, now found in northern Russia.'

With ignorance and apathy, modern humans seem hellbent on recreating a massive release of CO2 by burning carbon-based fuels at ever-increasing rates, which is raising the temperature high enough to melt Arctic permafrost and release teragrams (1 billion grams) of methane each year. This vicious circle will likely lead to an accelerated rate of methane release. Here's hoping the planet eventually reaches equilibrium with conditions conducive to life and not with conditions similar to those found on Venus that make life impossible. Some may suggest that 'civilized' humans had a good run on the planet, but our track record only runs roughly 10,000 years, and our penchant for burning things may well lead to extinction of most life on earth. We will not be missed.

[Odin2005]

3. That's some stunning accuracy, there!

I've read that there is a project to pinpoint the time of the K/T Impact within a margin of error of 10,000 years.