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Meteor Seen as Causing Extinctions on Earth

Posted by michael on from the proximity-defense-system-needed dept.

An anonymous reader writes "From the NY Times (I think you may have to register): About three dozen minuscule shards of rock unearthed in Antarctica may be the fragments of a meteor that killed most life on Earth 250 million years ago, scientists are reporting today. These rocks have yielded soccer-ball-shaped molecules known as buckyballs containing extraterrestrial gases, as well as grains of quartz with fractures that indicate a tremendous shock. The extinction 250 million years ago, in a period known as the Permian-Triassic boundary, was the largest of all. About 90 percent of species disappeared."

2 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Naturally-occurring Buckyballs? by GTRacer · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I mean, I remember reading about fullerenes in Discover like 10 years ago, but I never knew they could occur naturally, or in the case of a cataclysmic impact, spontaneously.

    I thought it took precise conditions to get them to form. And for these to have captured gases inside...

    Weird...

    GTRacer
    - Go-o-o-o-al!

    --
    Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
  2. Impact-caused volcanic activity by Vaevictis666 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If the evidence for an impact does become more compelling, that would raise another geological mystery, whether meteor impacts can set off huge volcanic eruptions. Huge eruptions in India coincided with the Yucatan meteor impact 65 million years ago, and Dr. Basu sees a clear link between the Antarctic shards and the Siberian eruptions.

    Something to note is that both cases here involves a meteor impact on the opposite side of the earth from the eruptions. Coincidence?