From CAGE – CENTER FOR ARCTIC GAS HYDRATE, CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT and the unquestionable certainty about the past department:
![Plot of extinction intensity (percentage of genera that are present in each interval of time but do not exist in the following interval) vs time in the past for marine genera.[1] Geological periods are annotated (by abbreviation and colour) above. The Permian–Triassic extinction event is the most significant event for marine genera, with just over 50% (according to this source) failing to survive.](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/permian-triassic-extinction_intensity.png?quality=75)
Extreme global warming caused a severe mass extinction of life on Earth 252 million years ago. It took life up to 9 million years to recover. New study finds clues in the Arctic as to why this recovery took so long.
Arctic gives clues on worst mass extinction of life
“The mass extinction was likely triggered by a explosive event of volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia. These eruptions lasted for a million years and emitted enormous amounts of volatiles, such as carbon dioxide and methane, which made our planet unbearably hot.” says Jochen Knies, researcher at CAGE.
Life took an extraordinary long time to recover from this extinction, from 5 to 9 million years. Why recovery was so delayed, has remained a mystery.
Clues are in the Arctic
Knies is the co-author of a study that took to the Arctic to look for clues as to what limited return of life to world´s oceans. The results of the study illustrate potential long-term impacts on marine ecosystems in response to global warming.
“What used to be the northwestern continental margin of the supercontinent Pangaea is now Canadian High Arctic. There we found evidence in geological records for a significant nutrient gap during this period. This means that global oceans were severely poor in nutrients such as nitrogen,” says Knies.
This nutrient gap is most likely the result of extremely high ocean surface temperatures in the aftermath of the extinction.
Be cool stay alive
Our oceans are not a single body of water. They are comprised of layers and boundaries based on temperature (thermocline) and nutrients (nutricline) among others.
“The high temperatures caused deepening of the thermocline and nutricline in the ocean so that upwelling of nutrients from the bottom to the surface of ocean ceased. With that the marine algae productivity was stalled,” according to Knies.
And without algae, which are the base of the food chain, the life in the ocean did not thrive.
Once oceans finally started cooling 6-7 million years after the extinction, nutrient rich waters returned.
“The boundaries that kept the nutrients from reaching the surface were weakened and the ocean waters were mixed. This caused the upwelling of nutrients, resuscitating the oceans, and leading to an explosion of life. The ecosystem voids created by the worst mass extinction in Earth history were finally filled.” states Jochen Knies
In many ways the Permian-Triassic mass extinction reset the evolution of life, and paved the way for evolution of dinosaurs. They, in turn, died off in another mass extinction 66 million years ago. Today some scientists argue that we are facing a new mass extinction period, mostly caused by human activities.
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Yes, this may have a lot to say about how climate change may progress on Earth if our atmosphere becomes filled with not only CO2, but also the other volatiles associated with volcanic eruptions, such as HCl, SO2, and so forth. Tim Ball has the right response to all such studies. A necessary (but not sufficient) condition to prove cause and effect is a tight constraint on the timing and sequence of events that is never available from isotope chronology.
Probably brontosaurus flatulence. And other herbivores. Lol. So don’t be blamin no T-Rex.
As you may know, the P-T event occurred long before there were any dinosaurs, and indeed cleared the earth for them to evolve from the previously minor faunal element of archosaurs or proto-archosaurs.
The dominant land animals of the Permian were synapsids, mammal-relatives like Dimetrodon. Dinosaurs and other archosaurs (such as pterosaurs and crocodilians) are diapsids, along with the lepidosaurs (snakes, lizards and tuataras). Turtles are also probably phylogenetically diapsids, but their skulls are presently “anapsid”, ie lacking holes in their heads in back of their eye sockets. Synapsids have one such opening and diapsids two.
A volcano of that size most likely have caused extreme cooling, not heat. Today the estimate claim volcanoes don’t produce significant CO2. Why the change?
Many, many moons ago, there was a TV ad claiming that ‘a day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.’
Nowadays it seems that a day without some “scholarly” paper or other (and particularly its carefully crafted Press Release for the benefit of dutiful MSM auto-recyclers) harping on trumped up “dangers” of global warming, climate change – or whatever the UN’s tweeted danger-flavour of the day might be – is rapidly becoming, well, like a day without news!
And on a somewhat related, albeit verging on O/T but IMHO amusing, aside …
I noticed that the ads I was served with this post were (top) BC Lotto Corp flogging an invite for me to play online and (bottom) Amazon.ca flogging Naomi Klein’s latest polemic, This Changes Everything.
Amazing, eh?!
How hot do they think that Earth could have been at that time?
Probably hotter than Earth would be if we continued to burn fossil fuels for a thousand years and if climate sensitivity is 4.5C.
I do believe that we should combat global warming, but, I very much doubt that its effects will be as severe as whatever caused the Permian extinction.
The earth was about the SAME temperature as it is NOW. It was considerably warmer before AND afterward. The extinction did not happen because of “climate” change.
Although, it IS possible climate changed because of the extinction.
Something happened on this planet 252,000,000 years ago. It’s always interesting and often enlightening to read about speculative theories from scientists that explain the when, where and how various combinations of factors combined in our past.
Of course we frequently have other, just as qualified scientists with competing speculative theories that seem to make just as much sense. It would be impossible (at least for me) to know which speculative theory or what parts of other theories to put together with confidence to fully explain what actually happened.
The ending “opinion” tells us a great deal about the authors mindset……making a connection between the extreme conditions in his speculative theory about earth 252 million years ago and a suggestion of an earth today suffering from extreme conditions, this time caused by humans.
“Today some scientists argue that we are facing a new mass extinction period, mostly caused by human activities.”
We will never know if the extraordinarily extreme conditions in the very distant past, 252 million years ago happened the way this study suggests. I am pretty sure though, that a similar mass extinction on this planet will not occur from human activities.
For sure it won’t be caused by a global temperature increase of a couple of degrees and the increase in the beneficial CO2, which is unlikely to get to 600 ppm, has so far, been welcomed by most life on this greening planet.
I’ll bet we can program models to show mass extinctions!
Yet another [though not particularly new] entry into the P-T extinction discussion
Succinctly covered in Wikipedia…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian–Triassic_extinction_event
It’s a bit like saying I’ve come up for an idea for a new breakfast cereal
Wise people apply the knowledge of the past to present problems. Charlatans apply the myths of the present to problems of the past..
“Today some scientists argue that we are facing a new mass extinction period, mostly caused by human activities.”
Well. As long as these “scientists” are the first to go,the rest of us will be able to enjoy more food,less violent storms,and money grubbing from eco-AGW cultists. Hey,I can wish!
now THAT’s gonna set the bronze age back a bit.
Mass volcanic eruptions in Siberia that lasted a million years? That creates quite a mind image.
But don’t volcanoes erupt because of a build up of “pressure” inside the earth? And the reality is that most eruptions don’t last long, ending when that pressure is relieved. (Ok, some simmer on and on but not many.) So once relieved, this pressure inside the earth immediately built up again and new volcanoes erupted or old ones erupted again?
Ok, so where did all this pressure inside the earth come from that caused mass volcanic eruptions in Siberia that lasted a million years? What was causing the earth to puke its liquid guts out — coupled with a bad case of gas that fouled the atmosphere — both lasting a million years?
Has anyone ever suggested an answer to this? Where was all that internal pressure coming from?
Eugene WR Gallun
Mid-Ocean ridges are essentially volcanoes, albeit rather long ones.
The oldest oceanic crust in the Indian Ocean is about 140 million years old which suggests that volcanism along the Mid-Indian ridge has been taking place for 140 million years. Along the Pacific and Atlantic mid-ocean ridges volcanism has been occurring for around 200 million years.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tectonics/crustages.jpg
Greg K
Well, that is information but I don’t see how that explains the eruptions in Siberia which supposedly caused a great mass extinction.
Since the Mid-Indian Ridge has been active for 140 million years and the Pacific and Atlantic Mid-Ocean Ridge has been active for 200 million years and neither has caused any mass extinctions i would suspect that plate movement was not responsible for Siberia. Do you think otherwise?
Eugene WR Gallun
In the formation of Pangea, the area in Russia where the Siberian Traps occurred had been drifting north for about 100 million years. The area probably overrode some other continental crust, an ancient smaller craton that is now gone of course so we don’t know about it.
When continental crust is driven down into the mantle and subducted under other continetal crust,it eventually melts out because it has slightly different chemistry. It becomes lighter than the rest of the mantle and less viscous and it comes back out in volcanoes.
A super-continent is also going to put tremendous pressure on the mantle below and they eventually split apart as the mantle pressure builds up. 50 million years after the Siberian Traps, the Central Atlantic Magamtic Province started the split apart of Pangea as North America split from Africa and South America and began the process which led to the Atlantic Ocean. These volcanoes were also massive and probably led to the Jurassic Extinction. Yes
, the Atlantic is only 200 million years old at maximum and some parts were just created yesterday.
Pressure from a super-continent above, subducted old continental crust. Magmatic Province release.
Great reply as always.
In reconstructions of continental drift over the Phanerozoic I get the impression that the total continental land area has steadily increased, from 600 mya up to now. Is this correct – or is the data accurate enough to say that?
Bill, continental crust tends to more acidic (i.e. granitic). It contains less iron and magnesium and more aluminum and silica. Magma with a granitic chemistry (low on the Bowen’s Reaction Series) tends to be very viscous, not less. Volcanoes over such melts tend to be explosive and discharge rhyolites and lava of similar silicic chemistry. The volcanic arcs along the continental sides of subduction zones are typified by stratovolcanoes. Shield volcanoes, e.g. Hawaii or the plateau basalts of the US northwest, the Deccan Traps, and (perhaps) the Siberian traps, are more often associated with mantle plumes (which are hypothetical but still one of the only efficient ways of explaining phenomena like the Hawiian/Emperor seamount chain). In gneral, the lower the specific gravity a lava has, the lower its melting point and the higher its viscosity when melted. Whether the Siberian Traps were associated with a mantle plume is debated, but there is evidence that there may be a plume.
https://www.le.ac.uk/gl/ads/SiberianTraps/Plumesornot.html
It’s the pressure differential that matters, and you get a chimney effect: the higher the magma plume the more the magma floats–the more negative pressure it gains. Outhouse manufacturers now use chimney pipes that take advantage of the warm gas in the poop tank. This ventilates the tank and the outhouse at the same time, and they don’t stink any more. It’s a marvelous scientific advance, and probably not instigated by NASA. –AGF
But it’s Anthroprogenic Climate Change now, that’s not Global Warming.
I doubt it was caused by the CO2 anyway. 100% of temp increases in the last 100 years has been Albedo change.
And what caused the excessive Siberian volcanism?
That is my problem with the entire thing.
What is the cause? A few people have tried to answer it but that all assumes the Earth was stable in its orbit, the sun’s output was the same or nominal to the cause..etc. Why are we only looking for evidence in ice cores and nor correlating that data with the astronomical record?
In other words what the heck happened to cross referencing?
What really happened? Dunno. But if you take all the hypothesis togethet, you’ve got one heck of a strike on Antarctica, the Tethys shallow sea, Siberian volcanoes, plate tectonics and added pressure from in the Earth itself. Ok, those are great clues…particularly the massive size of the volcanoes and the length of time they erupted. But it never answers or even posits the why. Are all of these related to something else? What was the sun doing at the time? Did the moon dip into its lower orbit causing tidal fluctuations in the mantle causing the pressure build up? Not unheard of, we have posited this is happening in our solar system now. So is it some kind of the same? How about that comet? Was it a comet or a 2nd moon in a deteriorating orbit that finally crash landed?
These are all rhetorical questions the scientists of this study needed to answer or at least consider before blaming CO2, methane and claiming nitrogen is the only nutrient in the ocean, and that volcanoes burst forth only CO2 and methane. What???!!!!
I give by this paper a C for effort but a lazy one at that.
The planet, if you view its geological history in fast forward, is really quite a violent place. There are several problems in geology that have been and remain difficult. One is the formation of shield volcanoes, which seem mostly to associated with “fixed” hotpots – mantle plumes – which the crust, both oceanic and continental move over with time. If you look at a map of the Pacific ocean floor for instance you can trace a line of undersea mountains, extinct volcanoes from Hawaii northwest to Midway Island. A little farther northwest and the chain turns almost due north meeting the junction of the Kurile Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula. A similar trail of destruction travels from the Pacific coast eastward to Yellowstone and is known as “the Plateau.” Another suggestion is that major asteroid impacts one side of the planet may trigger major volcanism on the opposite face. But, all crust is in motion and the majority of it is not nearly old enough to record these events. Only relatively small areas within the continents retain truly ancient geology.
Given that CO2 is not a strong climate driver at the atmospheric level required for plantlife (i.e. over 250 ppm) and that Methane is even less so, the conclusions are based on false assumptions. There may have been a temperature event as described and it may have been due to volcanic activity but the mechanism had nothing to do with either CO2 or Methane.
Yawn, more “all things being equal” science”
For example, and it’s a big assumption. These reconstructions always assume that the solar system was always stable. That’s the sun is always stable, that everything is always stable so blame methane and CO2?
When one considers how much spewed from the Siberian traps..
Furthermore, Siberia and surrounding areas would have looked like the usual depiction of Hell.
http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/embed/public/2014/02/11/permian-mass-extinction.jpg
We are talking one massive area where serious heat among other things was being pumped into what was a different atmosphere than we have today, in content and size, the atmosphere was no doubt shallower than today, which makes all that heat being pumped out from the planet even more effective.
There was no need for CO2 to warm things, this huge event went on for how long?
It seems that things were already quite stressed out when the Siberian traps went off.
Imo it was changes to water chemistry that killed ocean life, more than heat, though heat probably had an effect, but these kids of eruptions turn water to acid, literally acid.
Sulfur, there must have been epic amounts of sulfur put into the atmosphere and unlike CO2, sulfur can and currently is acidifying waterways, but not oceans, sulfur the very thing the IPCC wants to use to save us from “global warming”!
Wasn’t there similar going on in what is now Oman, the traps there.
There was huge continental geological changes around this period.
This is more “venus” analogue science, lets forget the geological history, lets forget the actual physical events and the posibilities, and just blame 2 gases which conveniently are the evil gases of the “Global warming doom”
NonScience nonsense
The claims do not fit the timing of events. The ice age ended abruptly about 275 mya. At the same time a decline in oxygen started that took oxygen from around – to 35% of the atmosphere down to 15% at 252 mya. It is known that the oceans became anoxic towards the peak of extinctions and allowed sulphur bacteria producing H2S to dominate making the oceans or parts of them very toxic.
At that time gas exchange systems were very primitive and not all that efficient so that the drop in O2 would have been devastating.
Question – what caused oxygen to decline and why were plants not able to sustain O2 levels.
It should also be noted that 252 mya was the end of the extinctions not the start, they started some 15 million years before that, long before the Siberian traps volcanoes started.
The scenario that best fits the data is that the end of the ice age and removal of ice on Earth exposed rock such as pyrite in which iron as Fe 2+ was oxidised to Fe3+ removing oxygen from the air (combustion would not explain the reduction in oxygen as it would increase CO2 by the same amount, that clearly did not happen)
Plants could not replace the oxygen as CO2 was only 300 ppm restricting growth(far below the optimum of 1000+ ppm )
Consequently the combination of removal of oxygen and inability of plants to replace it lead to a decline in O2, as is happening now.
At 252 mya the extinctions ceased and biodiversity started to increase again as CO2 rose through 1600 ppm and continued to rise thereafter. Had CO2 been the culprit then biodiversity would not have increased post 252 mya (also note that the main Siberian Traps volcanoes were centred more on 248 mya not 252 mya.The increase in CO2 prior to 252 mya may well have been due to decomposition of dead organisms rather than volcanic.
The data suggests that the extinctions were caused by a drop in oxygen that occurred due to the lack of CO2. Only when CO2 increased beyond 1600 ppm did the extinctions cease.
CO2 decrease most likely killed the plants off, and most oxygen comes from the ocean, terrestrial plants absorb and emit CO2 O2. To affect either gas amounts plants need to decline or increase. Ocean chemistry changes caused bacteria changes, it being the oceans and source of most O2 by far, it is not surprising these changes were probably the final nail in the coffin, and caused by the Oman and Siberian traps and very possibly a lot of geological activity in the oceans too!
If CO2 levels dropped around 300m years ago, plant growth would have been severely impacted, plants take several generations to properly adjust to new CO2 levels to incorporate the extra gas into base growth size.
Unfortunately we need accurate beginning and termination of events to get a true picture of possible cause. We do not have that resolution, so it’s all just guesses which came first.
Too many guesses in published literature on this subject
… emitted enormous amounts of volatiles, such as carbon dioxide …
CO2 is not a “volatile”. This is just a continuation (and result) of the attempt to demonize CO2
Can anyone point me to info regarding the rapidity of these various mass extinction periods? Were they catachlismic, over-night events or took several million years? The dinosaur extinction could be explained by a successull egg-eating species. That would take millions of years, while a comet impact would supposedly cause the extinction in a year or so.
I think the major problem is we can’t define the beginning and end of these events, we dont have the resolution in the data.
There is not even agreement on when the LIA started and ended never mind 250-300 million years ago.
Hi Robert,
As pointed out above and multiple places on this thread, the main problem is resolution. The further back in time one goes, the less resolution there is.
It has also been pointed out that the “extinction” was a process, starting at least several million years before the final, “terminal” event itself. What was the final ‘nail in the coffin’? Excellent question: we just do not know.
We do not know how long the “terminal” extinction took to unfold. Hypothetically, it could have been just one calendar year, or it could have unfolded over (conceivably) 20,000 years, 30,000 years, or 98,000 years, or just about any number under 150,000 – 200,000 years, as that is the theoretical limit of our best time resolution at the end of the Paleozoic. Regardless of the actual number, in a geological sense, it was “instantaneous”. The biggest problem with trying to understand geologic time is that any reference based on a human lifetime becomes meaningless. Take this issue with looking at “climate change” over the past two centuries. Elderly people today can recall weather events from (a maximum) of a century ago. Such a time frame, geologically, is not resolvable (unless we are looking at recorded human history, which is itself almost geologically close to meaningless). Certainly climate has changed over two centuries, because it is always changing.
But having apoplexy over changes on this time scale is ludicrous. Year 500,000 A. D. geologists/climatologists will probably be unable to detect what we have witnessed since C. Y. 1800, when looking at delta-O-18 isotopes.
Whatever happened to the proven idea that volcanism causes global cooling consequential to all of the particulates? Everywhere I look, I see these idiots grasping at straws to try and support an absurdly high sensitivity that logic, physics and data unconditionally disputes. Anyone who can’t see the dysfunctional nature of climate science caused by political intervention either isn’t paying attention or they approve of the IPCC’s strategy of using the false excuse of saving the world to justify destroying the economic prosperity driven by free market capitalism.
The mass extinction was likely triggered by a explosive event of volcanic eruptions. These eruptions lasted for a million years.
Today some scientists argue that we are facing a new mass extinction period, mostly caused by human activities.
– human activities, causing vulcanic eruptions lasting million years. Should do it.
A point for consideration that seems true but may be valueless.
There was one super continent. Almost all ocean life is found in the shallow waters around continents. This extinction involved both land and ocean life. I can remember reading somewhere that most life on the single continent was concentrated at its edges (maybe I am remembering wrong). If so those extinctions took place in close proximity to one another.
Just a thought probably worthless.
Eugene WR Gallun
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f5WH6CexxNogdGQajvjLk3x2uLiGHeVpAMFx5XfF3As/edit?usp=sharing is a link to an analysis I made several years ago showing the likely-hood of the relation of asteroid strikes to major volcanic activity such as the Deccan traps (and also likely the Siberian activity). Both dust blocking sunlight, as well as emitted gases had effects. BTW, the Deccan traps were opposite the strike 65 My ago, but the plate drift moved the location to the present.
If this study is even partially right, it means extreme climate change can occur without any human involvement. How then can we be so certain that changes to the climate today are not also being caused by natural events?
An exTINTion event – as in coral bleaching maybe?
Sorry – I shouldn’t be facetious. You should fix the spelling in the heading.