Quote:
Originally Posted by greenfeather
What's the name of that book again?
My comments will be off topic, so this should be a private email, but sorry everyone, I don't know how to write private emails on this forum.
What kind of experiments are you doing about the Permian Extinction? Would they have anything to do with the huge crater they found in Antarctica? I recall that Ward, as well as others, didn't think a comet caused the extinction. Mostly because "no crater was found." Are they eating their words yet? Or at least are they getting samples from the crater?
I loved David Grinspoon's book, and yeah, in between his scientific theories he throws in a lot of references to the 70's, being a stoner, etc. That really helps me to relate !
|
The book is called
Life As We Do Not Know It. Highly speculative in parts but does a good job summarizing the interesting work going on in the labs of people like Steve Benner, and several people in our program here in Seattle.
No, our theories of the Permian extinction do not involve bolide impact. I thought the paper about the Bedout crater was interesting but Peter doesn't buy it, although I've never gotten a good explanation why out of him. We're looking at the precipitous drop in atmospheric oxygen from an all-time Earth high (well, presumably, and in the Phanerozoic for sure) of ~30% down to around 13% from the mid Permian into the early Triassic, as well as the contemporaneous rise in carbon dioxide, possible huge hydrogen sulfide flux as per papers like the Kump et.al. one from last year (I think?) and potential associated secondary effects of that. Basically, we have an oxygen lab for testing mass extinction kill mechanisms.
David and I are kindred spirits of a sort, being both not only astrobiologists and at least occasional users of leafy green substances (I don't really consider myself a stoner), we're both rock guitarists...