From the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , another “carbon as planet killer” scenario.
MIT researchers find that the end-Permian extinction happened in 60,000 years — much faster than earlier estimates
The largest mass extinction in the history of animal life occurred some 252 million years ago, wiping out more than 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of life on land — including the largest insects known to have inhabited the Earth. Multiple theories have aimed to explain the cause of what’s now known as the end-Permian extinction, including an asteroid impact, massive volcanic eruptions, or a cataclysmic cascade of environmental events. But pinpointing the cause of the extinction requires better measurements of how long the extinction period lasted.
Now researchers at MIT have determined that the end-Permian extinction occurred over 60,000 years, give or take 48,000 years — practically instantaneous, from a geologic perspective. The new timescale is based on more precise dating techniques, and indicates that the most severe extinction in history may have happened more than 10 times faster than scientists had previously thought.
“We’ve got the extinction nailed in absolute time and duration,” says Sam Bowring, the Robert R. Shrock Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at MIT. “How do you kill 96 percent of everything that lived in the oceans in tens of thousands of years? It could be that an exceptional extinction requires an exceptional explanation.”
In addition to establishing the extinction’s duration, Bowring, graduate student Seth Burgess, and a colleague from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology also found that, 10,000 years before the die-off, the oceans experienced a pulse of light carbon, which likely reflects a massive addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This dramatic change may have led to widespread ocean acidification and increased sea temperatures by 10 degrees Celsius or more, killing the majority of sea life.
But what originally triggered the spike in carbon dioxide? The leading theory among geologists and paleontologists has to do with widespread, long-lasting volcanic eruptions from the Siberian Traps, a region of Russia whose steplike hills are a result of repeated eruptions of magma. To determine whether eruptions from the Siberian Traps triggered a massive increase in oceanic carbon dioxide, Burgess and Bowring are using similar dating techniques to establish a timescale for the Permian period’s volcanic eruptions that are estimated to have covered over five million cubic kilometers.
“It is clear that whatever triggered extinction must have acted very quickly,” says Burgess, the lead author of a paper that reports the results in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “fast enough to destabilize the biosphere before the majority of plant and animal life had time to adapt in an effort to survive.”
Pinning dates on an extinction
In 2006, Bowring and his students made a trip to Meishan, China, a region whose rock formations bear evidence of the end-Permian extinction; geochronologists and paleontologists have flocked to the area to look for clues in its layers of sedimentary rock. In particular, scientists have focused on a section of rock that is thought to delineate the end of the Permian, and the beginning of the Triassic, based on evidence such as the number of fossils found in surrounding rock layers.
Bowring sampled rocks from this area, as well as from nearby alternating layers of volcanic ash beds and fossil-bearing rocks. After analyzing the rocks in the lab, his team reported in 2011 that the end-Permian likely lasted less than 200,000 years. However, this timeframe still wasn’t precise enough to draw any conclusions about what caused the extinction.
Now, the team has revised its estimates using more accurate dating techniques based on a better understanding of uncertainties in timescale measurements.
With this knowledge, Bowring and his colleagues reanalyzed rock samples collected from five volcanic ash beds at the Permian-Triassic boundary. The researchers pulverized rocks and separated out tiny zircon crystals containing a mix of uranium and lead. They then isolated uranium from lead, and measured the ratios of both isotopes to determine the age of each rock sample.
From their measurements, the researchers determined a much more precise “age model” for the end-Permian extinction, which now appears to have lasted about 60,000 years — with an uncertainty of 48,000 years — and was immediately preceded by a sharp increase in carbon dioxide in the oceans.
‘Spiraling toward the truth’
The new timeline adds weight to the theory that the extinction was triggered by massive volcanic eruptions from the Siberian Traps that released volatile chemicals, including carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere and oceans. With such a short extinction timeline, Bowring says it is possible that a single, catastrophic pulse of magmatic activity triggered an almost instantaneous collapse of all global ecosystems.
To confirm whether the Siberian Traps are indeed the extinction’s smoking gun, Burgess and Bowring plan to determine an equally precise timeline for the Siberian Traps eruptions, and will compare it to the new extinction timeline to see where the two events overlap. The researchers will investigate additional areas in China to see if the duration of the extinction can be even more precisely determined.
“We’ve refined our approach, and now we have higher accuracy and precision,” Bowring says. “You can think of it as slowly spiraling in toward the truth.”
The real question is how many Hiroshima’s does it take to warm the water around a coral reef the size of Manhattan by three degrees?
Not being a volcanologist I tried to find out what volcanoes emit?
The IPCC has informed of the following.
I hear there was life threatening global warming at the time too.
Matt G says:
February 11, 2014 at 10:11 am “Around 252 million years ago CO2 levels were roughly between 1700-1800 ppm. There were periods for many millions of years with much higher CO2 levels with no mass extinctions. There is no scientific evidence that CO2 caused any mass extinction known unless the spike would have been above 50,000 ppm.”
I think the paradigm shift in interpreting the past now involves measuring the rapidity of change; that is, the levels changed too quickly for life to adapt. Now that the ghg paradigm has been established, the evidence can be found with great precision and accuracy.
Tom G(ologist) on February 11, 2014 at 5:38 am
Hey David L;
“In my day it was “Star Wars Defense” and much funding could be gotten for anything you could do with a laser, even if it had nothing to do with defense.”
Don’t knock it. At least we got CD and DVD players – and those little cat amusing laser pointers 😉
———
Not knocking it….you are absolutely right!
LT says:
February 11, 2014 at 6:15 am
————————————
Try http://tinyurl.com/ Shortens long urls.
” wiping out more than 96 percent of marine species ”
“How do you kill 96 percent of everything that lived in the oceans in tens of thousands of years? It could be that an exceptional extinction requires an exceptional explanation.”
Well, 96% of all species is not 96% of everything that lived; it would only be if all species were equally plentyful. Maybe most of these species were only scraping a living in a tiny niche, I don’t know. A species is a species, sorta, whether there’s 1000 or a billion individuals.
But my real problem with the statement is, the guy claims that they know all species that lived back then, and know all species that survived it. So he claims complete knowledge. Actually it’s not my problem, it’s a problem for Darwinism. If knowledge of ancient species is now complete, there are no missing links. Darwin said that if no missing links can be found his theory is falsified.
Zeke says:
February 11, 2014 at 10:28 am
“measuring the rapidity of change; that is, the levels changed too quickly for life to adapt.”
Humans face spikes of CO2 indoors much greater than than current atmospheric levels now and have no problems. 60,000 years is not a rapid change to living organisms and many species would have many thousands of generations involved in evolution. it is more than 2400+ generations for humans and any concurrent generations would not notice any difference.
JPS says: @ur momisugly February 11, 2014 at 7:53 am
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The oceans are buffered.
“How do you kill 96 percent of everything that lived in the oceans in tens of thousands of years? It could be that an exceptional extinction requires an exceptional explanation.”
Oh yes, it was not the giant impact meteor times bigger then the one which killed the dinosaurs:
“The crater is about 300 miles wide.”
http://www.space.com/2452-giant-crater-tied-worst-mass-extinction.html
It was the +0.x °C from Carbon Dioxide which caused the extinction. Important is not to quantify how much CO2 when out just state it.
urederra says: @ur momisugly February 11, 2014 at 8:08 am
Only CO2 was addressed. I don’t think HCl was mentioned. So how could I or Chiefo have been wrong?
Yeah, Chiefo is wrong. Adding CO2 changes the pH of a solution. How much does it change depends on the solution. Graeme no. 3 explains it perfectly at chiefio’s.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Again. The oceans are BUFFERED. What is done on a chemistry lab bench WITH OUT A BUFFER is not the same.
The actual chemistry is in the paper The distribution of CO2 between atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere; minimal influence from anthropogenic CO2 on the global “Greenhouse Effect”. starting on page 3.
The link is at that website along with several papers dealing with volcanoes, CO2 and geology.
A paper by Marusek ‘The Great Permian Extinction Debate’ (35th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, 2004), states that the Permian sedimentary/paleo record indicates the extinction interval involved three impact events and lasted over a period of 8 million years beginning at the end of the Guadalupian (259 ma) and ending at the Permian –Triassic boundary (251 ma). Two of those impacts caused pole reversals.
The paleontological record is supported by red oxic Guadalupian chert overlain by gray anoxic chert transitioning into deep ocean anoxious siliceous and carbonaceous claystone at the Triassic boundary. The impact events also caused the Siberian Traps and subsea volcanic eruptions at plate boundaries.
Although the paper recognizes three extinction events, causing a superanoxic ocean, it suggests the last extinction event collapsed the remaining marine and terrestrial ecosystems in “a few tens of thousands of years.”
No direct links to the paper. Marusek’s website ‘Impact:
http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/
Zeke says:
February 11, 2014 at 10:28 am
I think the paradigm shift in interpreting the past now involves measuring the rapidity of change; that is, the levels changed too quickly for life to adapt. Now that the ghg paradigm has been established, the evidence can be found with great precision and accuracy.
Zeke, breaking news: sudden variations in CO2 content do not kill plants, nor animals, these happen day to day:
http://m4gw.com/minnesota-co2-drops-from-over-400ppm-to-362ppm-in-one-day/
Plants are being grown in greenhouses with 800-1000 CO2 ppm without mass extinction, neither plants, nor humans working there.
So if the trigger takes 10,000 years and the extinction takes much longer, how does Al Gore expect half of all life to go extinct in the next 30 years?
Zeke says:
February 11, 2014 at 10:00 am
The Greenhouse Gas “paradigm shift” requires the revision of history to fit the “paradigm.”
…
Although I was not invited to the structured “revolution” either, I think the “community of researchers” will find the co2 and methane of past epochs triggered “tipping points” in earth’s ecosystems faster than life could adapt and evolve to conditions.
Judging from the comments the new greenhouse gas “paradigm” is “incommensurable” with what the text books once said. It is a little startling to receive the memo that the “rabbit” was really a “duck” at first, but the “researchers” found this “paradigm shift” necessary to answer their “questions.”
This is how progressive scientists roll. And this will mean of course a few modifications in behavior and education, now that these “tipping points” are being “discovered” with such great “accuracy” and “precision.”
Oh yes, you are perfectly right and I was wrong, sorry about it.
Indeed I have already encountered this paradigm shift and these “tipping points” in history study, like the farting megafauna going extinct (due to pre-historic humans hunter-gatherers of course) causing the younger dryas event, also diagnosed with “precision” and “accuracy”:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n6/full/ngeo877.html
I think Noah knows something about extinction events. 🙂
While there was waste and surely corruption and insider dealing, the purpose was to preserve Western civilization. The people behind it believed in American exceptionalism, that our way of life was not only worth preserving, but it was better than any of the alternatives.
Lars P. says,
Thank you very much for the breaking news, “Minnesota CO2 drops from over 400ppm to 362ppm in one day!” with the graph by Elmer Beauregard. He says, “The day started out at 405ppm but the sun was shining brightly and all the new budding trees and young green grass started to gobble up all of that extra CO2 and that number dropped quite a bit, in fact at about 6:45 in the afternoon it dropped way down to 362ppm. The average for the day was 394ppm.”
It reminded me of my own region, which rains so much that we no longer even notice the green sheen of moss on sidewalks, fences, and even tires if you park for too long.
According to theory, rain of course washes the co2 out of the air, becoming a solution called carbonic acid, which then eats away soft limestone, forming caves. My roses, apple trees, and grapevines, along with great stands of evergreen and deciduous trees, convert the rest of the atmospheric co2 to various sugars, oils, starches, and wood. I am sure we have our own regional co2 levels which cannot be binned or averaged with other regions, and on balance, I would say that my emissions are contributing to the formation of roses, grapes, fir, stalactites, and extraordinary calcite crystals; and that these in fact make life on earth a little more enjoyable. I don’t expect to be penalized by environmental activists and politicians for being in a symbiotic relationship with nature here. Yet still our governor is forging a regional ghg reduction agreement with part of Canada to do just that.
A couple of questions for the more mathematically inclined:
1. Over tens of thousands of years the oceans are well mixed. If the entire atmosphere was pure CO2, and over a few thousand years all dissolved into the sea leaving nothing but vacuum over the earth’s surface, by how much would this increase the ocean’s pH? My guess would be a tenth or two.
2. What are the relative magnitudes of the rate of CO2 emission during the Siberian trap flood basalt event, and the rate of human release of CO2 currently? I would guess something like 1000:1.
Its hard to describe just how big the Siberian Traps volcanoes were.
They lasted for several million years and the most energetic activity was right at the Permian extinction timeline but the volcanoes started before and continued afterward.
The volcanoes erupted enough material to cover the entire continental United States in 400 meters of ash and magma. Or let’s say it was enough to cover the entire land surface of Earth at the time in 10 meters of ash and magma.
Yeah, there is going to be some extinctions from that.
Bill Illis says:
February 11, 2014 at 12:33 pm
Its hard to describe just how big the Siberian Traps volcanoes were.
Do we have any idea what initiates such flood basalts?
urederra says: @ur momisugly February 11, 2014 at 8:08 am
Yeah, Chiefo is wrong. Adding CO2 changes the pH of a solution. How much does it change depends on the solution. Graeme no. 3 explains it perfectly at chiefio’s.
Here is the conclusion of what Graeme no. 3 said that you forgot to say:
Graeme no. 3 says: “Basically, you are quite right; rising carbon dioxide is never going to make the oceans acid.”
Your comments were unnecessary.
daddylonglegs says:
February 11, 2014 at 12:38 pm
“Do we have any idea what initiates such flood basalts?”
The exit vector on the opposite crust of a mantle penetrating asteroid’s shock wave traveling in excess of 20,000 miles per hour. Marusek:
http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Permian.pdf
“Carbon Vortex”, anyone ???
Another case pf beginning with the answer you want, then looking for the “evidence” to back it up.
I agree with Tom G(eologist) and rockdoc about problems dating zircons. Additionally, although uranium / lead dating is one of the oldest and most refined dating techniques, the precision is between 0.1% – 1%. For the youngest Permian rocks (252 million years old), that’s 252,000 to 2.52 million years.
“We’ve got the extinction nailed in absolute time and duration,” says Sam Bowring, the Robert R. Shrock Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at MIT.
Although I have not read the paper, I don’t see how they could have nailed down the extinction to a range of only 60,000 years (+- 48,000 years) using uranium / lead dating.