2. Creating acid rain as the sulfate is converted to sulfuric acid and reducing the protective ozone shield.
3. Creation of a thermal anomaly
4. Injection of poisonous trace elements into the atmosphere and oceans.
The Siberian traps represent the most voluminous known continental flood voluminous known continental flood volcanism in Earth?s history, with an original volume estimated at 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 cubic kilometers distributed over 2,500,000 kilometers square in central Siberia. The traps? volcanic succession overlies Permian strata and is in turn overlaid by Triassic strata?.. (Rene et al. (1995)
When Ar-40/Ar-39 and U-Pb dating is done on the volcanic rock, the age turns out to be 250 Ma with a plus or minus 1.6 Ma space. Many other dating techniques have been used and they all roughly agree on this date. Many scientific papers such as Wingnall et al. (1993), Dao-Yi et al (1993, 1989, 1995), and Erwin (1993) and the papers they used give irrefutable evidence of volcanism. Therefore there is scientific proof that a great volcanic event occurred during the PTB. But how could the volcanoes in Siberia have produced such an unprecedented global extinction. Wignall (1993) give a short hypothesis on this subject.
…we suggest that the effect of huge volumes of carbon dioxide released during the eruption of the Siberian flood basalts may have led to global warming, which in its turn produced extensive areas of warm saline bottom waters poor in oxygen. The major negative swing of carbon isotopes in the early Griesbachian could be recording this major volcanogenic input of isotopically light carbon.
Renne (1995) gives his interpretation.
Siberian flood volcanism, perhaps augmented by sulfates derived from evaporites of the Siberian platform, could have produced sufficient stratospheric sulfate aerosols for rapid global cooling to ensue. Resulting ice cap accumulation likely caused the dramatic marine regression, which in turn led to subaerial exposure of the continental shelves. This latter effect would account for the ubiquitous anomalies in C, S, and Sr isotopes. Isotopically light C and S from mantle-derived carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide would also contribute to the observed negative anomalies in C-13 and S-34. Ice storage effects plus enhanced erosion of the continental crust could have produced the seawater O-18 enrichments observed at the boundary. Rapid transgression after the boundary would follow from the abrupt cessation of Siberian volcanism and the resulting ice cap recession. Climate recovery may have been enhanced by slower developing greenhouse effects of volcanogenic gasses, primarily carbon dioxide. Indeed, a short-lived volcanic winter, followed within several hundred thousand years by greenhouse conditions, would fully explain the environmental extrema that caused the P-T mass extinction?s.
8. Pyroclastic Eruptions
—Don?t think I will include it. Said a little about it in volcanism.—
9. Flood Basalts
Erwin (1993) showed that over long periods of time, carbon dioxide can act as an insulator and initiator for a greeenhouse effect. A release of carbon dioxide from the Deccan Traps flood basalts in India was the main cause of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. If the volume of the eruptions are correct, sulfate aerosols and carbon dioxide may have been introduced during the formation of the Siberian Traps. The buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would warm the earth and cause a decrease in pH of the ocean. An estimated 500,000,000,000,000,000 moles of carbon was produced during the age of the Deccan Traps and the same thing could have occurred during the Permian.
In both modern and Cretaceous oceans the upper 100m of the ocean is reasonably well buffered against pH changes by calcareous microplankton, but the release of this large volume of carbon dioxide would have swamped the system and lowered the pH of the waters, perhaps triggering carbonate dissolution. A reduction in the biomass of the calcareous microplantion could have established a positive feedback loop, further increasing carbon dioxide buildup in the oceans and the atmosphere. During the Permian, calcareous microplankton did not exist, although calcareous algae were abundant until the onset of the regression. Consequently, the buffering system might not have been as well developed as it was by the Cretaceous. Thus the effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide may have been more severe (Erwin, 1993).
10. Trace element poisoning
There is little evidence and research done on trace element poisoning. The only reason this theory exists is the parallel between the extinction and chemical disasters in a large interconnected water system. But as Erwin (1993) points out, Permian and terrestrial floras and faunas were not affected by trace element poisoning because the marine environments at the time has a slow diffusion rate. The high concentration of some trace elements could be due to a regression and high level of marine extinction?s which reintroduced potassium, phosphate, vanadium, and other biogenic elements into seawater and sediments.
IV. The final hypothesis
The situation facing us is like a court room where all the witnesses eliminate one another as suspects. We are left with two option. Either a person that we don?t know of committed the crime or all the witnesses are guilt. The problem facing the judge is like the one facing us. Some suspects can be eliminated immediately such as global cooling, species-area effects and extraterrestrial impact. But most of the other hypotheses are open as possibilities. We can pick one cause and say that it caused the extinction but what do we do with evidence that the hypothesis doesn?t support? People prefer a simple and uncomplex explanation for the extinction but they will not have their wish. The evidence of the Permian extinction supports many complex theories. The extinction can not be traced to a single cause, but rather a multitude of events occurring together. The start of the extinction seemed to been caused be a regression. The regression was due to a decrease in ocean currents so carbon dioxide could build up in the deep. This caused a decrease in atmospheric carbon and a cooling of the earth. The regression caused :
1. Reduction in habitat diversity
2. Increase in climatic seasonality
3. Oxidation of organic material
4. Gas hydrate release
The reduction in habitat diversity and increase in climatic seasonality caused ecological instability. Oxidation of organic material and gas hydrate release caused an increase in carbon dioxide which lead to the development of an anoxic ocean and global warming. Adding to the global warming and anoxic ocean was the Siberian Traps which produced carbon dioxide and metal deposits. These three main factors: ecological instability, anoxic ocean, and global warming caused the greatest extinction the earth has ever had.
V. The aftermath of the extinction ? a brief look
“An analysis of the fossil record reveals some unexpected patterns in the origin of major evolutionary innovations, patterns that presumably reflect the operation of different mechanisms”(Lewin, 1988). The most interesting “unexpected pattern” is the gross asymmetry between the diversification of life in the Cambrian explosion (about 440 million years ago) and that following the great end Permian extinction (a little over 200 million years ago). Biological innovation was intense in both instances; both biological explosions burst upon a life-impoverished planet. Many niches were unoccupied. Even so, all existing (and many extinct) phyla arose during the Cambrian explosion and none followed the Permian extinction. “…why has this burst of evolutionary invention never again been equaled? Why, in subsequent periods of great evolutionary activity when countless species, genera, and families arose, have there been no new animal body plans produced, no new phyla?”(Lewin, 1988). Some evolutionists blame the asymmetry on the different “adaptive space” available in the two periods. “Adaptive space” was almost empty at the beginning of the Cambrian because multicellular organisms had only begun to evolve; whereas after the Permian extinction the surviving species still represented a diverse group with many adaptations. (Just how the amount of “adaptive space” available was communicated to the “mechanism” doing the innovation is not addressed in this paper.) Scientists contemplating these matters, however, seem to concur that microevolution, which supposedly gives rise to new species, cannot manage the bigger task of macroevolution, in particular the creation of new phyla at the beginning of the Cambrian.
VI. Conclusion
In an attempt to summarize the material learnt and as a strong believer in God I strongly feel that the truth needs to be told.
And it came about after seven days, that the water of the flood came upon the earth. In the six hundred year of Noah?s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened?.Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days; and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth. And the water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits [one cubit = 18 feet] higher, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. Thus He blotted out everyliving thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark (God, ¥).
To completely understand science we must first realize that there is a God. When we look at the evidence of the extinction at the PTB in the context of a world wide flood, while also realizing that pre-flood conditions could be different than our own, it doesn?t contradict the theories put forward. Obviously with a flood there was a great transgression and regression. Differences in cosmic radiation were dramatic when you compare pre-flood with post-flood conditions (if you believe that the earth was surrounded by water). Differences in isotopes readings and all other measurements agree with the flood setting. Without having this kind of understanding of earth?s events, scientists will never find a correct answer to what happened and will forever be groping in the darkness in search for the truth.
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These sources mostly have come from the University of Alberta. I used the ?Gate? and databases to get periodicals and books. Some of the sources came from the internet. I emailed some of the authors and they sent their papers to me by email. Some I got from web sites. I have no web sites posted in my sources because all the only information I took was when the paper and its source was displayed. I didn?t quote or use internet sources because they are not reliable and most are based on opinions and not science.