Asteroid strike linked to wipeout of life on Earth (P-Tr Extinction)

[Ediacara]

Asteroid strike linked to wipeout of life on Earth
Scientists identify location, time of impact in crater off Australia

By MARK CARREAU
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle



Scientists offered a strong link Thursday between the "Great Dying," when most life on Earth was wiped out 250 million years ago, and a massive asteroid strike in what is now the ocean near Australia.

The asteroid gouged a 125-mile-wide crater at Bedout, then a marshy part of Australia. Its arrival, researches said Thursday, coincided with the mysterious event, or series of geologic upheavals, that extinguished an estimated 90 percent of marine life and 80 percent of land life.

A science team led by Luann Becker, a geologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, led a NASA and National Science Foundation-sponsored study that identified the location and time of the strike.

The work was done with studies of offshore sediments, seismic readings and the mineralogy of several continents.

More at the Houston Chronicle

[On the Road]

1. After 250 Million Years,

it's amazing the evidence is still there. The great dying had been attributed to volcanic activity in Siberia, but that might have been an effect rather than an independent cause.

[robbedvoter]

2. Wow! Just saw it on film at the museum of natural history yesterday

[Gman]

3. I thought the asteroid or comet strike off Yucatan was the reason

life was wiped out.

[MUAD_DIB]

4. That was 65 million years ago. Earth has seen a few mass extinctions.

[Ediacara]

7. 65Ma, refered to as the K-T extinction

The "time of dinosaurs" is bound at the beginning and the end by mass extinctions. At the beginning of the Triassic, the P-Tr extinction was tremendous. Dinosaurs evolved in the middle Triassic, but didn't become dominant until there was another mass extinction at the end of the Triassic. And of course, at the end of the Cretaceous, the K-T extintion killed off all non-avain dinosaurs (and a whole buttload of other stuff).

[Paulie]

5. Nemisis - The Cosmic Terrorist!!!!

http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/lbl-nem.htm :)

26 Million cycle of mass extinctions. Another reason we need to move to another planet! :D

[DUreader]

6. I'd like to see a topographical map of the area

I'll google it a little later

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

8. Not much to see.

There aren't very many topographical manifestations of structures with such old origins. Quite likely the topo wouldn't show any evidence of the impact whatsoever.

[Ediacara]

10. It's rather flat

The crater can be seen using seismic stratigraphy, mineralogy, but won't show up in any modern topo map.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

9. This is being used to sell the weaponization of space.

When there was a near miss by an asteroid earlier this year, scientists came within hours of notifying the White House.

The neocons have cleverly used the fear of space rocks to justify the weaponization of space to save us. Unfortunately, that is a real threat.

Check out the semi-secret project in Alaska with dozens of high-power synchronously tuned micro-wave transmitters pointed at the atmosphere.
It's called High Altitude Atmospheric Resonance Project or HAARP. It became kinda public so the Pentagon had to put up their own PR site.

www.haarp.net

This will blow your mind. My girlfriend used to go out with a researcher who worked on this and she doesn't even like me to talk about it on the phone. Guess I'm kinda reckless. Sorry, dear.

[oneighty]

11. Oh no! It cannot be.

Earth is only six thousand (6,000) years old.

When will we ever learn, sigh.

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