The Permian Mass Extinction (With References)

Expand For References:

251 million years ago, at the close of the Paleozoic, the Earth nearly died. Literally. And completely.
It's estimated that 85-90% of all life became extinct.
The more familiar Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs paled in comparison.
Why?
What caused the seas and air to become poison?
Could it happen again?

This vid is an abridgement of "The Day The Earth Nearly Died", an episode of BBC's "Horizon" program.

If you'd like to learn more,
these are good papers to start with:
(If you'd like something more elementary, or more specialized, just contact me)

Benton and Twitchett, 2003
http://cmbc.ucsd.edu/content/1/docs/benton2003.pdf

Ward, etal, 2005
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~jkirschvink/pdfs/WardKarooScienceFinal.pdf

Ward, etal, 2000
http://duff.geology.washington.edu/grg/publications/pdfs/science-v289-090800.pdf

DeKock and Kirschvink, 2002,
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/users/jkirschvink/pdfs/GondwanaResearch.pdf

White, 2002
http://www.le.ac.uk/gl/ads/SiberianTraps/Documents/White2002-P-Tr-whodunit.pdf

Kamo, etal, 2003,
http://www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/Siberia_Kamoetal_2003.pdf

Berner, 2002
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4172.full.pdf

Category:

Education

Tags:

• The
• Permian
• Mass
• Extinction
• earth
• history
• life
• fossil
• dinosaur
• evolution
• creation
• science
• geology

[goliathprime]

We are so screwed.

[lukebccb]

Ongoing debate involves asteroid or not and Siberian Traps alone but counter argument has Traps resulting from being antipodal of asteroid, etc.

[okpatriot]

What a joke!!

[earlymorning619]

You'd have to increase the temperature by approximately 500 C to decompose carbonate rocks.

[muhammadtaimur]

super vid and the documentary would be great aswell.

One thing really bothers me. This increase in temperature and greenhouse gases have played their part in almost all extinction events. Even in this case, 5 deg increase releases methane hydrates from bottom. But after the increase of 10 deg, why is it that the carbonate rocks don't start releasing CO2 and the greenhouse effect becomes runaway like our neighbour VENUS. Afterall that can happen here even though we are further away than VENUS.