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Volcanoes May Have Caused Mass Extinctions?
Hugh Pickens writes "According to recent research, huge amounts of sulphur dioxide released by volcanic eruptions may have had more to do with wiping out dinosaurs than the meteorite strike at Chicxulub on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. Marine sediments drilled from the Chicxulub crater have revealed that that the mass extinctions occurred 300,000 years after Chicxulub hit Earth. The Deccan volcanism was a long cumulative process that released vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. '"On land it must have been 7-8 degrees warmer," says Princeton University paleontologist Gerta Keller. "The Chicxulub impact alone could not have caused the mass extinction, because this impact predates the mass extinction."' Keller also postulates a second larger and still unidentified meteor strike after Chicxulub, that left the famous extraterrestrial layer of iridium found in rocks worldwide and pushed earth's ecosystem over the brink. But where's the crater? "I wish I knew," says Keller."
This sounds like an L. Ron Hubbard story.
If you had ate least read the summary, you would have realized that this "predate" here means 300000 years...
The Deccan volcanism was a long cumulative process that released vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Yeah, but with our advanced technology, we can cut that time in half.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Everyone knows that the earth is only 6000 years old, as evidenced here They even have models of Eve with vegetarian Raptors. See. I do not understand why anyone pays any attention to these activist scientists. Duh...
Maybe the meteor impact caused the volcanos to start up.
Gerta Keller... *sigh*
I think everyone should take her research with quite a few grains of salt, she has been in a bitter fight for years over this issue and she has been quite obnoxious when it comes to the topic of Chicxulub and mass extinction. Until this is confirmed by independent research, nobody should take it for gold.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Given that radiocarbon dating looses too much accuracy to be useful somewhere between 5k and 10k years... I seriously doubt they used that. Especially since it wasn't mentioned in the article.
Some quick (20 second) searching found some things you might like to enlighten yourself with.
Radometric dating, methods other than just carbon
They probably used thermoluminescence dating.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Volcanoes not only belch out gas, but aerosol droplets and ash are blasted into the stratosphere during major eruptions. If the major gas component of eruptions is carbon dioxide, that "evil" global warming gas, it will cause temps to increase globally. While on the other hand, if sulfur dioxide is the major component of an eruption it can lead to an over all global temperature drop. [pulling info from my brain from college courses]
If volcanoes, globally, are belching out a massive amount of gas, it will eventually lead to a dramatic change in atmospheric conditions. The altered atmospheric conditions will then have the domino effect on global climate. Any dramatic fluctuation in climate obviously didn't occur over a short period of time, but would have affected the dinosaurs in the long run(droughts, famine or temperatures they were not able to adapt to) and, in short, lead to the Darwinian 'survival of the fittest'. The mammals were the ones that were able to adapt, so they 'took over'.
DUH! The Church of Scientology has been saying this for years now, people! Get with the times!
Unfortunately, Keller is about the only person who believes the date of the impact is 300,000 years earlier than the extinction. A lot of people have issues with the location and interpretation of the core samples she has taken to create this theory - directly from the impact site. To me, trying to analyse samples from the impact site of an explosion 2 million times more powerful than our largest nuclear bomb blast is a pretty insane thing to do - it'd be like trying to read the tea leaves in your cup of tea after someone ran a bulldozer through your house, set fire to the rubble, dug it up and sent it to the dump.
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
I do not care much for lizards. They are big, stupid and slow, and they smell. All these dinosaurs are around, and I hated them all, but there's all sorts of stupid regulations about dinosaurs, thanks to Al Gore leading the save the dinosaur charge.
So I hopped into my time machine, gathered up some of the world's famous hunters, went back in time and killed the dinosaurs. Me and Buffalo Bill must have slaughtered 1,200 T-Rex's in what is now Montana, just in one night of drinking and hooting and hollering and a-shooting.
Those of you wonder what really happened to Jesse James, though, should know that he really did die 65 million years ago. We were playing cards one night after a big hunt and I drew a royal flush to his full house. Jesse probably wouldn't blown my head off in anger, but Buffalo Bill was quicker on the draw and he said, "Don't even do it Jesse." Jesse stuffed his revolver back into his holster, grabbed the bottle and went off in a huff. But as he was a stompin' away, he was set on by a pack of raptors and chewed up. It was a sad thing, but T.R. was able to go shoot two down with that pistol of his, and, thus, while we couldn't save Jesse, we at least saved the bottle of whiskey.
I reckon it took us a few months to kill all them dinosaurs. Since they all ate the biggest dinosaurs, we just took out all the brontos and crushed their eggs, and the rest all starved. We shot a bunch too. And then I dropped everyone back into their own times, and came back to this one, and there was not a dinosaur to be found.
Thank god!
So I called upon Mr. Gore to see if he remembered how much he liked dinosaurs in this adjusted timeline, and he said that he thought dinosaurs were ok in their own time, and said that, if we didn't do something about global warming, dinosaurs might come back.
So now, I gotta back in time and gather up the boys and go visit henry ford.
Ah, the work that we do!
This is my sig.
For starters, the 21st Century Science and Technology is NOT a reputable, peer-reviewed scientific journal. It is a group of quacks. Literally, the magazine (which is not even printed anymore, copies are available now as pdf only) is a thinktank of scientists who challenge "the assumptions of modern scientific dogma, including quantum mechanics, relativity theory, biological reductionism, and the formalization and separation of mathematics from physics." (from their statement of purpose).
Furthermore, the "21st century" publication follows the line of groupthink known as the LaRouche Movement, a wacky pseudo-political group of conspiracy theorists and nutcases. Their group spews fascist, anti-semetic ideology like it's going out of style.
That alone makes your bullshit transparent, but you state that you want something other than attacks on credentials (I happen to believe that scientists stand or fall on their credentials, including past bodies of work, but whatever). So, in a nutshell, Radiometric Dating, including Carbon-14 dating and other methods such as Rubidium-strontium dating and Uranium-lead dating, is EXTREMELY accurate and accepted by all reputable scientists and peer-reviewed scientific journals.
So, if your russian scientist is the only one shouting that it's inaccurate, we must be left asking "Why does every other scientist accept it, and what is his axe to grind?".
~Wx
sig?