A slight over 200 million year ago , when Earth had only one mega - continent call Pangaea , fifty percent of life in the ocean decease abruptly . What happened ? Researchers long think that this effect , call the End - Triassic mess extinction , might have been triggered by acute volcanic activity as Pangaea fall in into two smaller Continent .
But a new study bring out today in Science suggests that the sea deaths were because of “ a massive passing of carbon into the air , followed by speedy clime variety . ” Earth scientist Micha Ruhl and colleagues examined ancient plant fossils , and found on their molecular analysis it appears that “ at least 12,000 gigatons of methane was injected into the aura over just 10- to 20,000 year of the end - Triassic extinction . ”
This kind of methane button , in the present twenty-four hours , is exactly what environmental scientists have been warning us about for years . If temperature rise slimly high than they are now , it might be enough to meld quick-frozen methane at the bottom of the oceans , thus releasing the kind of gas mega - bubble that may have finish so many lives at the oddment of the Triassic geological era . According to a release about Ruhl and his squad ’s findings :
The research worker suggest that this short - lived burst of methane was more likely responsible for the mass extinctions . Changes in vegetation at the end of the Triassic Period also ply evidence of impregnable warming events and an raise planetary weewee cycle at the sentence , they say . Ruhl and his colleagues also say that their findings may help scientist be after ahead , since humankind could potentially bestow 5,000 gigatons of carbon or more to the atmospheric state if we were to combust all of our know dodo fuel reserves .
So if story is any pathfinder , humans ’ shot of atomic number 6 into the atmosphere might ultimately wipe out off one-half of all sea sprightliness — or more .
Read the full scientific papervia Science .
prototype : Upper Triassic sediment ( crimson ) alternating with basalts from the Central Atlantic Magmatic
Province ( brown ) , in the Atlas mountains ( Morocco ) .
earth scienceGeologyScience
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