Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to a new study, vast quantities of burning coal contributed to the Permo-Triassic Extinction, which killed 70% of all vertebrate species.
Coal-burning in Siberia after volcanic eruption led to climate change 250 million years ago
Date:June 16, 2020
Source: Arizona State University
Summary: A team of researchers has provided the first ever direct evidence that extensive coal burning in Siberia is a cause of the Permo-Triassic Extinction, the Earth’s most severe extinction event.
A team of researchers led by Arizona State University (ASU) School of Earth and Space Exploration professor Lindy Elkins-Tanton has provided the first ever direct evidence that extensive coal burning in Siberia is a cause of the Permo-Triassic Extinction, the Earth’s most severe extinction event. The results of their study have been recently published in the journal Geology.
For this study, the international team led by Elkins-Tanton focused on the volcaniclastic rocks (rocks created by explosive volcanic eruptions) of the Siberian Traps, a region of volcanic rock in Russia. The massive eruptive event that formed the traps is one of the largest known volcanic events in the last 500 million years. The eruptions continued for roughly two million years and spanned the Permian-Triassic boundary. Today, the area is covered by about three million square miles of basaltic rock.
This is ideal ground for researchers seeking an understanding of the Permo-Triassic extinction event, which affected all life on Earth approximately 252 million years ago. During this event, up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species became extinct.
Calculations of sea water temperature indicate that at the peak of the extinction, the Earth underwent lethally hot global warming, in which equatorial ocean temperatures exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It took millions of years for ecosystems to be re-established and for species to recover.
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Read more: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200616135818.htm
The abstract of the study;
RESEARCH ARTICLE| JUNE 12, 2020
Field evidence for coal combustion links the 252 Ma Siberian Traps with global carbon disruptionL.T. Elkins-Tanton; S.E. Grasby; B.A. Black; R.V. Veselovskiy; O.H. Ardakani; F. Goodarzi
https://doi.org/10.1130/G47365.1The Permian-Triassic extinction was the most severe in Earth history. The Siberian Traps eruptions are strongly implicated in the global atmospheric changes that likely drove the extinction. A sharp negative carbon isotope excursion coincides within geochronological uncertainty with the oldest dated rocks from the Norilsk section of the Siberian flood basalts. We focused on the voluminous volcaniclastic rocks of the Siberian Traps, relatively unstudied as potential carriers of carbon-bearing gases. Over six field seasons we collected rocks from across the Siberian platform, and we show here the first direct evidence that the earliest eruptions in the southern part of the province burned large volumes of a combination of vegetation and coal. We demonstrate that the volume and composition of organic matter interacting with magmas may explain the global carbon isotope signal and may have significantly driven the extinction.
Read more: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G47365.1/587319/Field-evidence-for-coal-combustion-links-the-252
The study estimates 6,000-10,000 Gt of carbon was burned. Global production of coal is around 8Gt, so we have a little way to go to catch up with the estimated Permian-Triassic burn.
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The Late Paleozoic Icehouse, aka the Karoo Ice Age, lasted the entire Carboniferous and most of the Permian epochs, a span of 100 million years.
The Pangaean supercontinent south of the Paleotethys Ocean included proto-Anarctica, -Australia, and -India all of which clustered near the South Pole and were ice-bound. It wasn’t until Pangaea broke apart (into Godwanaland, Laurasia, Cimmeria, and various other blocks) at the Permian-Triassic boundary that the LPI finally came to an end.
The Earth did not experience Icehouse conditions again until the Pleistocene — a span of roughly 250 million years. During that quarter of a billion years the Earth was 20°F warmer on average than today.
Note that the Permian extinctions were mostly trilobites. Terrestrial vetebrates including dinosaurs, birds, and mammals as well as flowering plants arose later, during the 250-million-year Warmth that is now kaput, done with, and over — unless humanity can find a way to repair the damaged climate and get our planet back to Thermic Normality, i.e. 20°F warmer.
So coal wiped out a lot of critters that would have stopped the evolution of humans? Wouldn’t that be good in weirdo-world?
All ensuing fauna would be spared from going on extinction rebellion marches.
Another 2 million year long coal burning orgy isn’t in the cards…no matter how much China would like it to be.
Arizona study says “During this event, up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species became extinct.”
Not the only publicized study this year. There has been another. A Berkeley team says there was a 300,000 to 400,000 years lag between the hemispheres. That’s an event? First paper made it seem like it all happened at once.
“In Earth’s largest extinction, land die-offs began long before ocean turnover … Though most scientists believe that a series of volcanic eruptions, occurring in large pulses over a period of a million years in what is now Siberia, were the primary cause of the end-Permian extinction, the lag between the land extinction in the Southern Hemisphere and the marine extinction in the Northern Hemisphere suggests different immediate causes. … that the start of the terrestrial turnover happened so long before the marine extinction was a surprise.”
Robert A. Gastaldo et al. The base of the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone, Karoo Basin, predates the end-Permian marine extinction, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15243-7
http://www.geologypage.com/2020/03/in-earths-largest-extinction-land-die-offs-began-long-before-ocean-turnover.html
I remember when the scientific consensus blamed coal burning for global cooling and then obscuring global warming.
No need to consider that. The extinction was from the Permian (Karoo) glaciation caused by Pangaea covering the south pole, causing snow and ice accumulation, for sea levels to drop below the continental shelves and for Pangaea to dry out. It was part of the roughly 300 million year supercontinent cycle that is caused by the changing orbital inclinations of Jupiter (318 E-mass) and Saturn (95 E-mass) varying Earth’s orbits and the speed of its rotation. Slowing down has a warming effect and makes Earth more rounded; speeding up has a cooling effect and makes the Earth more oblate. The warming of the Triassic was caused by the consequential start of the breakup of Pangaea with volcanic activity melting the polar ice caps, increasing sea levels and causing further warming by flooding of the continental shelves increasing coastal habitats and evaporation to create an explosion of life in the ocean and on land. It was from the same causes as the Cambrian explosion of life – the breakup of Pannotia.
I have just written about the current scenario on https://www.quora.com/Because-of-global-warming-should-we-go-back-to-using-animals-like-horses-and-camels-for-transport-and-towing/answer/John-Bruyn
Nope, The glaciation ended about 40 million years before the extinction.
So that is “modern science”?
Or is this more Climatology?
Well I guess we had better dig up all the coal we can locate and burn it as quickly as possible so it cannot “trigger” another Extinction event.
For we know volcanic action is only a question of when,not if.(Certain time scales apply).
The logical follow on from this speculation is we must consume all the coal,before it kills us all…
Burn the Witch..I mean Coal.
One can only hope that the burning of coal by humans today will cause the green’s extinction
“Many scientists suggest that effects of this volcanism, which lasted some 60,000 years, may have triggered the extinction of most living species”
Hmm. I’d suggest nearly all scientists (however defined) have never heard of this episode.
I would like Elkins-Stanton et al to cite fifty previously published peer-reviewed articles that support this theory. Can’t find fifty, then don’t claim “many”.
I think they have. It was the largest of all extinctions and it seems very likely that it was in some way related to the Siberian Traps, but the actual killing mechanism is very unclear.
“It took millions of years for ecosystems to be re-established and for species to recover.”
What about all that life that adjusted to 2 million years of volcanoes? They NEVER recovered. But apparently the species that evolved to live with erupting volcanoes for 2MY don’t count right?
Recovered from WHAT EXACTLY? I would counter that entire ecosystems went extinct, never to return after the volcanoes stopped erupting.
Still pontificating on when the Garden actually existed and trying to get all of us back there are we?
I want to know why those volcanos were erupting for 2 million years.
Here is where i get confused,
All the carbon in coal (Dead plants) came from the atmosphere. But when that carbon gets back into the atmosphere that same carbon would now cause massive warming when it didn’t do that before.
How does that work?
Stay sane,
Willem
What happened to all the unemployed coal miners when the Permo-Triassic period finished?
They learned ‘coding’, as Obama bin Biden urged them to do.
Oh good Lord, these “studies”……… Anyone involved in these types of climatastrophy-studies should be ashamed of getting paid (stealing) money for them.
By the way there is no coal deposits in the Tunguska Basin where the Siberian Traps erupted. The coal is further south in the Kuznetsk Basin. There are organics in the shales in the Tunguska Basin, but no coal.
There are also very large deposits of sulfates and halite so the volcanoes erupting through these layers probably carried lots of things much nastier than CO2 into the atmosphere. Things like mercury, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric aci, hydrofluoric acid and aromatic hydrocarbons.
Another silly thing. I’ve seen that illustration of what the Siberian Traps eruptions are supposed to have looked like any number of times, and of course it is completely wrong. These were plateau basalts erupting through fissures, so no volcanic cones. It looked more like this, though on a larger scale:
No permission for your link….
I wonder if we could get a cost analysis of this purposeless study and suggest where the money could have been spent on something of actual value to humankind.
I suppose that the thermal heat alone from the Siberian Traps over 3 million sq miles of erupting volcanic activity was also enough to raise the global atmospheric/ocean temperatures over longer the frames. Based upon the amount of coal burnt over a minimum 60,000 years, perhaps 2 million years, it wouldn’t be that much different from the amount of coal we burn today on an annual basis. In fact taking their worst case example of 10,000 Gt burnt over 60,000 years would be (6 GT/Yr) less than coal burnt per year than we currently burn, which is estimated at 8 Gt per year. Time scale is everything.
Similarly, the Deccan Traps in India, which were maybe half the size and half the time that they erupted as compared to the Siberian Traps, are thought to have had the dinosaurs in significant decline before the Mt. Everest sized asteroid hit the Gulf of Mexico off of Mexico. So the dinosaurs were already under immense pressure from the Deccan Traps just before they got completely wiped out and mammals inherited the good Earth. Usually, it is a combination of things leading the decline, and then Murphy’s Law applies.
“The Deccan Traps began forming 66.25 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period. The bulk of the volcanic eruption occurred at the Western Ghats some 66 million years ago. This series of eruptions may have lasted fewer than 30,000 years.”
“The original area covered by the lava flows is estimated to have been as large as 1.5 million km2 (0.58 million sq mi), approximately half the size of modern India. The Deccan Traps region was reduced to its current size by erosion and plate tectonics; the present area of directly observable lava flows is around 500,000 km2 (200,000 sq mi).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps#:~:text=The%20Deccan%20Traps%20began%20forming,some%2066%20million%20years%20ago.
The Siberian flood basalt eruption was a reality.
But research by Bjorn Baresel et al 2017
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep43630
has shown that the mass extinction event actually happened during a short ice age, during which sea levels fell (a “regression”). And atmospheric CO2 fell to a low level during this time.
But cooling events are not cool – politically it is mandated that all catastrophes have to look like human-made global warming.
So once again science serves up what the politicians demand – good doggie!
And Elkins-Tanton et al 2020 (above featured paper) don’t even mention Baresel et al 2017 in their reference list. More supposed scientific papers reading more like election manifestos.