Extinguishing life on earth before extinguishing was cool: “Fracking hell!”
… the researchers calculate that the impact would have generated thousands of earthquakes of up to magnitude 9.9 (significantly more powerful than the largest recorded by modern seismologists) for hundreds of kilometres around. In effect, it would have been the biggest fracking operation in history, releasing oil and gas from the shattered rock in prodigious quantities.
The upshot, Dr Tohver believes, would have been a huge burp of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, that burp would have resulted in instant global warming, making things too hot for much of the planet’s animal life. Presto! The Permian mass extinction is explained.
But of course.
h/t Larry
“AS EVERY schoolchild knows, the dinosaurs were wiped out in an instant, when a rock from outer space hit what is now southern Mexico. That happened 66m years ago…”
As every schoolchild knows? Thanks to delusional creationists, not in the US.
I assume this article is to be interpreted as an attack on fracking.
I see it as a proposed scientific theory made possible by the discovery of fracking.
Wiped out in an instant? Sorry.That is just a crap statement.The dinosaurs are quite alive and doing well,right now.We call them birds.
And schools do not teach about extinctions anymore. Gets in the way of the socialist pogr…errr….program.You know,guys like Stalin who tried to wipe out the Ukranians.
And how is zimbawa doing these days?
I think more likely a methane and ice snowball kicked out of the Oort cloud
no frac’ing needed.and it explains the rest of the cyclical extinctions too. without busting up much rock
Nothing like insulting 300+ million of your neighbors in order to win friends and influence people, Canadian Observer . . . not to mention that your view of science education in the U. S. is . . . how shall I put this . . . counterfactual. The standard science narrative–since all we can really know about the extinction of the giant saurians is that it happened (over a period of millions of years, by the way, as best we can interpret the paleontological record)–purveyed by U. S. science schoolbooks is weighted toward the asteroid-hitting-what-is-now-Mesoamerica. Since no one was there to observe and record what followed the Chickxulub Asteroid impact, it is all rank speculation, in any case.
Agree Carlos. My understanding is that the dinosaur mass extinction, as best these things can be discerned, occurred over a period of at least several tens of thousand years — hardly an instant. Brief in geological time scales to be sure, but far from attributable to a discreet, instantaneous event without consideration of aggravating factors in the climate and competition from other orders of animals.
The researcher may be correct that an impact caused fracking/methane release resulted in climate change and a massive extinction event. Not an extraordinary or controversial hypothesis in science. The politicalization of science by the unscrupulous should not discourage genuine scientific study. Besides, a controlled release of methane via man made fracking might prevent a similar cataclysmic “burping” event, right? The lowering of energy costs, displacing higher CO2 emmitting fuels, economic growth and providing solid working class jobs is merely a fringe benefit.
Speaking of evolution, being an endothermic omnivore with the ability to manipulate the environment to its needs and communicate successes/failures to billions of other humans makes our species superior to all of extinct predecessors. Doomers and misanthropes don’t give enough credit to the amazing evolutionary breakthroughs that have produced Homo Sapiens. Y’know if we can survive the insane meddling of Homo Sapiens politicus then I suspect we can survive anything Nature throws at us.
CP, I suggest you educate yourself on the ideological battle going on between creationists and evolutionists in many school districts in the US, primarily in the south. Also, you seem unaware of the high percentage of Americans that believe the world is only 6,000 years old.
Creationists are teaching millions of children that evolution is only a possible explanation of life on earth and that man co-existed with dinosaurs.
They are trying to replace geology and paleontology with the Flintstones.
While the dinosaurs were in decline for a long time before the asteroid impact (for which there is a ton of evidence), that impact definitely finished the dinosaurs.
This is an odd article since I just read a week ago that another research team found evidence in Canada’s far North that contradicted the notion that the Permian extinction was caused by a meteor. They also favored a massive methane release.
LAS I understand human life would also be finished if a similar comet or asteroid collision happened today.
It was the resultant cooling and light starvation that cause that extinction. Is the author claiming the Permian extinction related to warming? If so what about the other 3 extinctions the writer says occurred? I suspect shoddy research and errors of omission.
How could that possibly relate to fracking; and isn’t the earth supposed to be 4-6 deg C warmer right now, according the models and climate “experts?” Oh right, the cooling effect of global warming.
Except in China that is.
It’s a nice story, but not been scientifically proven how the dinosaurs were wiped out.
Therefore just a story. Same as the story about evolution and AGW.
CO, I live in the American South, have taught physical science in the public schools (in a past temporary career), and still work in a school system (Duval County Public Schools, Florida), albeit as a physical therapist, not a teacher . . . but I am in classrooms the whole day long, and, being a science geek, take an interest in what science is taught there. So, yeah, I am aware of what is actually taught in Southern classrooms. Now, the U. S. being a big place, I am sure someone, somewhere, is teaching heterodox paleontology, but that is not typical. (Actually, the most prevalent junk science being taught in American classrooms at the moment, and I _have_ witnessed this repeatedly, is dogmatic anthropogenic global warming, with its circular logic of oversimplified atmospheric models, incorporating the assumption that increased CO2 concentrations of a few parts per million to a few more parts per million are bound to cause hypersensitive positive feedback effects, are then used to run simulations that show dramatic future warming, which is passed off as an experiment.)
Please stop inferring what the South is like from watching _Deliverance_ and reruns of _The Dukes of Hazard_; in return, I’ll promise not to infer what Canada is like from watching old “The Great White North” skits from _Second City Television_ reruns.
I must concure with you Carlos.
We’ve had our daughter in the school system in Tempe for close to two years now; and I can say without a doubt that the education sytem and education options here are exponentially better on the East side of the Valley here in Az.
The ‘fracking’ insertion was blatant and totally tendentious BS that damages the credibility of the story. But the asteroid impact this guy talks of wasn’t nearly as big as the dinosaur killer. The Permian extinction was marked by massive warming, which was bad for life, and it killed the polar ice caps, which shut down oceanic circulation, causing them to fizz like shaken soda. What really kills the credibility of the linked article is the total lack of any mention of the massive volcanic eruptions at the time which seem like a much better bet to have kicked off this series of events than an asteroid.
This coincides with the new hubbub generated by this piece of manufactured speculative crap in the journal Nature.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/full/499401a.html
The article cited here sketches a 60 trillion dollar price tag (the summation of the world economy)and attaches it to the idea that arctic thawing will release boundless quantities of methane into the atmosphere. Doubling down on that, methane is now attached to global extinction. Nice!.
What’s troubling here is the apparent increased ability to orchestrate narrative across the scientific community.
CP, you really shouldn’t be so disrespectful of Canada.
You should also do some research on how religious zealots are tactically undermining science, you seem woefully uninformed on the topic. Have you been to the Creation Museum in Kentucky? You know, the one teaching visitors that evolution is a fraud and displays a dinosaur with a saddle on it’s back.
If you see no evidence of this agenda in the schools in your state, that is great news for all of us indeed. Hopefully that is a sign they are currently held to peddling their fraudulent bullshit within church walls. But the battle rages on in other areas. Sadly, AGW is being pushed virtually everywhere, despite any irrefutable scientific proof.
CP, are you not aware a staggeringly high percentage of Americans believe the earth is only 6,000 years old? Actually, as a self-confessed science geek, how can you possibly not be aware of that?
I believe the number is still somewhere around 50%. That claim is not anti-American, it’s simply a fact.
50%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Scripture says the earth is millions of years old. The earth became empty. Genesis 1:2.
Man, as in human, is less than 15 thousand years old. Man existed before that, but not as human. The jawbones, and other pieces of apes, notwithstanding.
Footprint in stone…
http://www.therain.org/studies/foot.html
Yeah well, the KT extinction (60M back) is currently considered the result of several massive events….the Deccan Traps, the Siberian Traps date from that time. Perhaps those events were triggered by the Chickxulub Asteroid impact….
Against such an impact, the Earth is a small thing…likely stressed by such a blow.
For the uniformed, the Deccan/Siberian Traps are the remains of truly massive volcanic events involving vast areas covered by lava flows…..and massive atmospheric dust etc.
Then there is the magnetic reversal thing….which is postulated to result in all manner of physical mischief…..uranium, berilium etc produced in massive amounts in the upper atmosphere setting off nuclear explosions on a vast scale. The layer of coal in the iridium/uranium rich KT boundary would suggest this.
It is possible the impact not only triggered the Deccan/Siberian traps but also induced a magnetic reversal.
The hydrocarbons released were likely ignited by the Permian impact boosting it’s destructive effect.
It’s all speculation…some informed some not.
Yes, that’s correct. It was a combination of unusual events in relatively quick succession geologically speaking, that contributed to the extinction of land based dinosaurs. Massive volcanism triggered by an asteroid impact is the current ‘best’ theory. Early mammals probably survived by developing a taste for dead dinosaur. Maybe that’s why we like chicken so much :}
CO, I hope your first sentence was meant tongue-in-cheek; otherwise, it exemplifies the old saw about the pot calling the kettle black.
I sense, in the tenor of your comments taken as whole, that your beef is not so much with what is taught in U. S. schools as with (a) religious belief and (b) with the existence of the U. S. A. Regarding (a), you might wish to temper the tenor of your comments, as you are not likely to make converts to your point of view by overweening, contemptuous remarks. Regarding (b), depending on how old you are, you may live to see it collapse as a nation, which, from your point of view, would appear to be good news; the bad news is that Canada is likely to go down the tubes with it.
As to the the Creation Museum in Kentucky, not having been in it, I cannot comment cogently on its exhibits. However, in a free society, with freedom of religion, speech, the press, etc., one is bound to encounter all sorts of points of view with which one disagrees. What do you expect, in a (still) free nation of 300+ million people?
Finally, I wish you would cite your source for the statement that 50% of Americans believe the earth to be 6,000 years old.
Oh well, I guess we can agree on the subject of AGW.
Cheers.
These scientific studies, or more accurately political science by press release, are not done to convince the public anymore. The public lost interest in the CAGW scare a while back. No, these studies are designed to reassure the neurotic and journalists (but I repeat myself) that they are not completely wrong about CAGW and give cover to politicians and crony capitalists still trying to make a few more bucks in new tax revenues and personal enrichment.
As WUWT would say these studies are “models (turtles) all the way down”. Any recent recalculations indicating a much lower climate sensitivity based on actual observations are ignored. A word cloud on any alarmist CAGW science study would have the words models,if and may figure prominently. Given the models obvious real world failures, they are no more valuable than augurs reading sheep entrails.