This is a complete rethink of the nature of the Permian extinction. If correct and it seems likely, then there is immediately no need to look for an astral source as took out the dinosaurs.
More importantly, it has been calculated that 90% to 95% of all marine species became extinct. It is plausible that that was concentrated in the inner sea which was possibly shallow and thus vulnerable to a simple super volcano. Certainly the shallow sea and its surrounds were a natural incubator for speciation not unlike the Amazon today.
Burying the Amazon in ash today would produce exactly the same local statistics.
Thus this extinction event which stood out as a total global wipeout with no convincing explanation is reduced to a massive local event that caught up to the obvious vulnerability of Permian geography. It likely had to happen sooner or later since Pangaea represented the total continental crust at the time.
Again we see one more geological anomaly checked of the old to do list.
Permian Extinction Not A Global Event
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Permian_Extinction_Not_A_Global_Event_999.html
by Staff WritersBoulder CO (SPX) Apr 04, 2009
More importantly, it has been calculated that 90% to 95% of all marine species became extinct. It is plausible that that was concentrated in the inner sea which was possibly shallow and thus vulnerable to a simple super volcano. Certainly the shallow sea and its surrounds were a natural incubator for speciation not unlike the Amazon today.
Burying the Amazon in ash today would produce exactly the same local statistics.
Thus this extinction event which stood out as a total global wipeout with no convincing explanation is reduced to a massive local event that caught up to the obvious vulnerability of Permian geography. It likely had to happen sooner or later since Pangaea represented the total continental crust at the time.
Again we see one more geological anomaly checked of the old to do list.
Permian Extinction Not A Global Event
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Permian_Extinction_Not_A_Global_Event_999.html
by Staff WritersBoulder CO (SPX) Apr 04, 2009
Understanding the cause of the extinction that wiped out some 95% of the living species at the end of the Palaeozoic Era has been one of the greatest problems in the earth and life sciences.
All explanations so far proposed have been based on global causes. This Special Paper from the Geological Society of America presents a new approach, one that focuses on the supercontinent of Pangea and the life-rich, enclosed oceanic realm, the Paleo-Tethys.
Authors A.M. Celal Sengor and Saniye Atayman of Istanbul Technical University note that the usual approaches to extinction overlook the fact that at the end of the Paleozoic all landmasses were fused together as one giant continent, Pangaea.
The supercontinent's internal ocean, the Paleo-Tethys, included the richest niches in the late Permian world.
According to Sengor and Atayman, the extinctions occurred within and around this ocean, giving the Permian devastation the aspect of a universal extinction.
"What little data we have from the rest of the world indicate that the same extinction did not happen there-except where the surrounding waters were polluted by Palaeo-Tethyan spills."
This book documents the history of the Paleo-Tethys and shows that the Permian extinction was an expected result of the peculiarity of the global geography at that time.
