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When Microbes Ate the Ocean
museumpeace writes "When /. discussed a story about microbes that could break down water as a hydrogen source, many commentors went off on a tangent joking about runaway germs eating the oceans. Now, prof Joe Kirschvink and students at CalTech propose that indeed, the worst iceage ever, which nearly ended life on earth 2.3 billion years ago, was the result of algae evolving the ability to break down water and flooding the atmosphere with oxygen. The absence of oxygen consuming organisms at that time is said to have lead to destruction of atmospheric methane which had hitherto warmed the earth. The professor concludes: 'We haven't had a Snowball in the past 630 million years, and because the sun is warmer now it may be harder to get into the right condition. But if it ever happens, all life on Earth would likely be destroyed.'"
Er, um, H.G. moreso.
UGH. *scratches another mark on the wall to keep track of how many times people have confused Orson Welles with H. G. Wells*
Kids, Orson Welles did not write War of the Worlds. H. G. Wells did, in 1898. Orson Welles just made a dumb little radio adaption of it.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Here is a link to their paper:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0504878102v1.pdf
Oh wow! I just checked the Wikipedia article - "The book is currently being adapted into script form by Richard Kelly, the writer and director of Donnie Darko.". Yay!
This is not a sig
And where do you think those radionucleotides came from?
That's right. They were created when some distant star went supernova. It's all due to solar power...
Linky goodness for the interested: OSU Subsurface Biosphere (tons of articles for the interested)
I believe you are looking for "The Five Chinese Brothers" by Claire Huchet Bishop. This was one of my favorite stories as a small child. And by the way, it was just a little boy that he was helping to fish - not a prince - that was drowned. The other brothers then trade places when they try and execute the first brother (one couldn't be beheaded, one couldn't be drown, and one couldn't be burned). At least this is how I remember it, I could be wrong on some of the brothers. Anyway, I thought I'd reply even though this thread twig is off-topic. I know I love rediscovering old favorites and thought I would share in case others are the same way.
you would never beable to get out of the iceage again or something like that.
That conundrum was solved over 30 years ago. As glaciation reaches the equator and covers the oceans (not to mention all other forms of liquid water) precipitation drops to virtually zero - much like the conditions you see at Amundsen-Scott in Antarctica. That means that carbon dioxide, which is usually washed out of the atmosphere via rain, slowly accumulates over time. And I do mean slowly, since the primary form of input is through volcanic eruption.
In any event, there's eventually enough carbon dioxide in the air that sunlight reflecting from the ice gets trapped between the ice and the carbon dioxide layer in the atmosphere. This heats up the atmosphere, which starts to melt the ice, which means less sunlight is reflected from the ice and more is trapped in the atmosphere, which means things get hotter and more ice melts, etc. etc. Your snowball world begins to melt and things start swinging wildly towards the other end of the spectrum: a Venus-like hothouse.
What's to stop a runaway greenhouse effect? Well, with the ice melting and free water making a reappearance you once again get clouds. And that means rain. And that means that some of the carbon dioxide gets washed out of the atmosphere. The more ice that melts the more rain there is the more the carbon dioxide layer begins to fail.
Snowball Earths can't be sustained indefinitely, nor can greenhouse Earths, so long as there's active volcanism.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Hey editors, Google is your friend!
mt
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." -- Douglas Adams
Sig
Wikipedia. Volcanoes. Easy to read about it.
Quote: "Volcanic activity now releases about 130 to 230 teragrams (145 million to 255 million short tons) of carbon dioxide each year."
Sometimes much higher if there is a extremely large eruption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_Carbon_E mission_by_Type.png
Yeah, I know you tried to be funny, nevertheless CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels is well over 6000 million tons per year or about 20-30 times that what volcanos produce.