| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Gregory Gadow" |
| Date: |
04 Nov 2003 09:21:09 AM |
| Object: |
God stinks! |
I mean, who else could have cause the Permian Extinction? Even more
noteworthy is the fact that hydrogen sulphide is one of the reasons why
farts smell bad.
From The Guardian,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1077141,00.html
Foul gas may have killed 95% of life
Tim Radford, science editor
Tuesday November 4, 2003
The Guardian
The biggest-ever mass extinction of life on Earth may have been
accompanied by the smell of rotten eggs or decomposing cabbage,
geologists said yesterday.
At the end of the Permian era, 251 million years ago, 95% of all life
went extinct - and the killer might have been foul-smelling hydrogen
sulphide.
Life has been wiped out on a massive scale at least five times in
geological history. The biggest, the Permian mass extinction, opened an
evolutionary doorway for the age of the dinosaurs, which also ended in a
mass extinction 65 million years ago, probably by collision with an
asteroid.
"The end-Permian is puzzling," Professor Lee Kump of Penn State
University told the Geological Society of America, meeting in Seattle.
"There is no smoking gun, no compelling evidence of asteroid impact."
The deep oceans of the Permian were anoxic, that is, they carried no
dissolved oxygen. If sea levels rose, then many creatures would have
died. A second theory was that for some reason, surface and deep water
mixed, bringing anoxic water to the surface. The decomposition of
creatures in the deep ocean could have caused a carbon dioxide crisis;
the gas is lethal in high concentrations to many animals. However,
"plants, in general, love carbon dioxide, so it is difficult to think of
carbon dioxide as a good kill mechanism," Prof Kump said.
But hydrogen sulphide gas could have been the great exterminator. Humans
can smell the gas at concentrations in parts per million million. At the
bottom of the Black Sea today there are concentrations at 34 parts per
million: a toxic brew for any oxygen-consuming creature. The poisonous
soup of the Black Sea is locked away under a layer of relatively clean
water.
Prof Kump added that 251 million years ago, as levels of oxygen in the
atmosphere fell, the levels of hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide in
the oceans would have begun to poison sea and air.
He is looking for evidence in the form of photosynthetic sulphur
bacteria in the end-Permian rocks.
--
Gregory Gadow
techbear@serv.net
http://www.serv.net/~techbear
"If you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you."
-- Benjamin Franklin
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| User: "squidwxrd" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
12 Nov 2003 10:43:14 PM |
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"When I get my hands on god, I'm gonna stuff his
teddy bear down his throat!"
quote from a late 70's Heavy Metal mag.
"Gregory Gadow" <techbear@serv.net> wrote in message
news:3FA7C3E5.B29F35BF@serv.net...
I mean, who else could have cause the Permian Extinction? Even more
noteworthy is the fact that hydrogen sulphide is one of the reasons why
farts smell bad.
From The Guardian,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1077141,00.html
Foul gas may have killed 95% of life
Tim Radford, science editor
Tuesday November 4, 2003
The Guardian
The biggest-ever mass extinction of life on Earth may have been
accompanied by the smell of rotten eggs or decomposing cabbage,
geologists said yesterday.
At the end of the Permian era, 251 million years ago, 95% of all life
went extinct - and the killer might have been foul-smelling hydrogen
sulphide.
Life has been wiped out on a massive scale at least five times in
geological history. The biggest, the Permian mass extinction, opened an
evolutionary doorway for the age of the dinosaurs, which also ended in a
mass extinction 65 million years ago, probably by collision with an
asteroid.
"The end-Permian is puzzling," Professor Lee Kump of Penn State
University told the Geological Society of America, meeting in Seattle.
"There is no smoking gun, no compelling evidence of asteroid impact."
The deep oceans of the Permian were anoxic, that is, they carried no
dissolved oxygen. If sea levels rose, then many creatures would have
died. A second theory was that for some reason, surface and deep water
mixed, bringing anoxic water to the surface. The decomposition of
creatures in the deep ocean could have caused a carbon dioxide crisis;
the gas is lethal in high concentrations to many animals. However,
"plants, in general, love carbon dioxide, so it is difficult to think of
carbon dioxide as a good kill mechanism," Prof Kump said.
But hydrogen sulphide gas could have been the great exterminator. Humans
can smell the gas at concentrations in parts per million million. At the
bottom of the Black Sea today there are concentrations at 34 parts per
million: a toxic brew for any oxygen-consuming creature. The poisonous
soup of the Black Sea is locked away under a layer of relatively clean
water.
Prof Kump added that 251 million years ago, as levels of oxygen in the
atmosphere fell, the levels of hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide in
the oceans would have begun to poison sea and air.
He is looking for evidence in the form of photosynthetic sulphur
bacteria in the end-Permian rocks.
--
Gregory Gadow
techbear@serv.net
http://www.serv.net/~techbear
"If you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you."
-- Benjamin Franklin
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
13 Nov 2003 12:47:45 AM |
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In article <CZDsb.55984$f53.17084@twister.austin.rr.com>,
"squidwxrd" <sissonskitty@hotmail.com> wrote:
"When I get my hands on god, I'm gonna stuff his
teddy bear down his throat!"
quote from a late 70's Heavy Metal mag.
"Gregory Gadow" <techbear@serv.net> wrote in message
news:3FA7C3E5.B29F35BF@serv.net...
I mean, who else could have cause the Permian Extinction? Even more
noteworthy is the fact that hydrogen sulphide is one of the reasons why
farts smell bad.
From The Guardian,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1077141,00.html
There is another theory making the rounds. The culprit in this case
was a violent eruption of methane. Methane is the major component of
digestive body gases. They may also contain traces of H2S and other
foul smelling compounds, which give these gases their disgusting odor.
IOW, Permian life was almost done in by a fart of cosmic proportions.
Someone ought to tell *GAWD* to lay off the bean burritos.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030818/030818-16.html
---
Boiling seas linked to mass extinction
Methane belches may have catastrophic consequences.
22 August 2003
Tom Clarke
Exploding ocean methane could have had the force of 100 million
megatons of TNT.
A massive methane explosion frothing out of the world's oceans 250
million years ago caused the Earth's worst mass extinction, claims a
US geologist.
Similar, smaller-scale events could have happened since, which might
explain the Biblical flood, for example, suggests Gregory Ryskin of
Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois1. And they could happen
again: "It's a very conjectural idea but it's too important to
ignore," says Ryskin.
Up to 95% of Earth's marine species disapeared at the end of the
Permian period. Some 70% of land species, including plants, insects
and vertebrates, also perished. "It's arguably the single most
important event in biology but there's no consensus as to what
happened," says palaeontologist Andrew Knoll of Harvard University in
Cambridge, Massacheusetts.
Ryskin contends that methane from bacterial decay or from frozen
methane hydrates in deep oceans began to be released. Under the
enormous pressure from water above, the gas dissolved in the water at
the bottom of the ocean and was trapped there as its concentration
grew.
Just one disturbance - a small meteorite impact or even a fast moving
mammal - could then have brought the gas-saturated water closer to the
surface. Here it would have bubbled out of solution under the reduced
pressure. Thereafter the process would have been unstoppable: a huge
overturning of the water layers would have released a vast belch of
methane.
The oceans could easily have contained enough methane to explode with
a force about 10,000 times greater than the world's entire
nuclear-weapons stockpile, Ryskin argues. "There would be mortality on
a massive scale," he says.
"It's a wacky idea," says geologist Paul Wignall of the University of
Leeds, UK, "but not so wild that it shouldn't be taken seriously."
There is evidence that the oceans stagnated at the end of the Permian
period. And the chemical signature in fossils of the time hints there
was a massive change in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide would have been produced as methane broke down or
exploded in the atmosphere.
After all, belches of trapped methane from lakes and oceans are "a
rare but well-known maritime hazard", Wignall adds.
Flood warning
The same phenomenon could explain more recent events, such as the
Biblical flood, Ryskin also argues. An eruption from Europe's stagnant
Black Sea would fit the bill. There is even some geological evidence
that such an event took place 7,000-8,000 years ago.
Other sluggish seas might still be accumulating methane at their
depths and could represent a future hazard, Ryskin adds. "Even if
there's only a small probability that I am right, we should start
looking for areas of the ocean where this might be happening," he
argues.
References
1. Ryskin, G. Methane driven oceanic eruptions and mass
extinctions. Geology, 31, 737 - 740, (2003).
---
--
John Hachmann, aa #1782
- Question authority. Now more than ever. -
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| User: "Alan Hobson" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
04 Nov 2003 12:47:09 PM |
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Gregory Gadow <techbear@serv.net> wrote in message news:<3FA7C3E5.B29F35BF@serv.net>...
I mean, who else could have cause the Permian Extinction? Even more
noteworthy is the fact that hydrogen sulphide is one of the reasons why
farts smell bad.
From The Guardian,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1077141,00.html
Foul gas may have killed 95% of life
Tim Radford, science editor
Tuesday November 4, 2003
The Guardian
The biggest-ever mass extinction of life on Earth may have been
accompanied by the smell of rotten eggs or decomposing cabbage,
geologists said yesterday.
At the end of the Permian era, 251 million years ago, 95% of all life
went extinct - and the killer might have been foul-smelling hydrogen
sulphide.
Life has been wiped out on a massive scale at least five times in
geological history. The biggest, the Permian mass extinction, opened an
evolutionary doorway for the age of the dinosaurs, which also ended in a
mass extinction 65 million years ago, probably by collision with an
asteroid.
"The end-Permian is puzzling," Professor Lee Kump of Penn State
University told the Geological Society of America, meeting in Seattle.
"There is no smoking gun, no compelling evidence of asteroid impact."
The deep oceans of the Permian were anoxic, that is, they carried no
dissolved oxygen. If sea levels rose, then many creatures would have
died. A second theory was that for some reason, surface and deep water
mixed, bringing anoxic water to the surface. The decomposition of
creatures in the deep ocean could have caused a carbon dioxide crisis;
the gas is lethal in high concentrations to many animals. However,
"plants, in general, love carbon dioxide, so it is difficult to think of
carbon dioxide as a good kill mechanism," Prof Kump said.
But hydrogen sulphide gas could have been the great exterminator. Humans
can smell the gas at concentrations in parts per million million. At the
bottom of the Black Sea today there are concentrations at 34 parts per
million: a toxic brew for any oxygen-consuming creature. The poisonous
soup of the Black Sea is locked away under a layer of relatively clean
water.
Prof Kump added that 251 million years ago, as levels of oxygen in the
atmosphere fell, the levels of hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide in
the oceans would have begun to poison sea and air.
He is looking for evidence in the form of photosynthetic sulphur
bacteria in the end-Permian rocks.
You know, I was thinking about mass extintions the other day. I
wonder if one of them was caused by the appearance of viruses. AFAIK,
nobody really knows when viruses first made their appearance on earth.
I would think that their appearance would have a devastating effect
on animal and plant life since they probably had no effective way to
combat them.
Just an idle thought that I had.
-Alan
aa#1608 BAAWA
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| User: "Mr. Vega" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
13 Nov 2003 07:46:44 AM |
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Gregory Gadow <techbear@serv.net> wrote in message news:<3FA7C3E5.B29F35BF@serv.net>...
I mean, who else could have cause the Permian Extinction? Even more
noteworthy is the fact that hydrogen sulphide is one of the reasons why
farts smell bad.
Interesting.. there was an article in National Geographic on a small
pond in Cameroon which suddenly released a lot of carbon dioxide on
night and killed everyone in the surrounding town.
A bit off topic... I read a theory about ship disappearances in the
Bermuda triangle which involved ocean vents of gas. Apparently, if
you have a wide column of gas bubbles and a ship were to sail above
it, it would go down like a stone.
Jack
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| User: "MarkA" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
13 Nov 2003 08:54:54 AM |
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On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 05:46:44 +0000, Mr. Vega wrote:
Gregory Gadow <techbear@serv.net> wrote in message
news:<3FA7C3E5.B29F35BF@serv.net>...
I mean, who else could have cause the Permian Extinction? Even more
noteworthy is the fact that hydrogen sulphide is one of the reasons why
farts smell bad.
Interesting.. there was an article in National Geographic on a small pond
in Cameroon which suddenly released a lot of carbon dioxide on night and
killed everyone in the surrounding town.
A bit off topic... I read a theory about ship disappearances in the
Bermuda triangle which involved ocean vents of gas. Apparently, if you
have a wide column of gas bubbles and a ship were to sail above it, it
would go down like a stone.
Jack
Statistically, ships are no more likely to disappear in the Bermuda
Triangle than they are anywhere else. Due to the fact that the BT is so
heavily travelled by ships, the absolute number is high, but the rate is
not.
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
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| User: "G" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
13 Nov 2003 09:36:31 AM |
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On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 05:46:44 +0000, Mr. Vega wrote:
Interesting.. there was an article in National Geographic on a small pond
in Cameroon which suddenly released a lot of carbon dioxide on night and
killed everyone in the surrounding town.
That's interesting indeed, because the pond would have had to release an
awful lot of carbon dioxide to kill someone.
Are you sure it wasn't carbon monoxide?
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| User: "jwk" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
13 Nov 2003 11:38:30 AM |
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G <G@aa.false.address> wrote in message news:<Pine.LNX.4.50.0311131633490.1220-100000@tc5.theochem.kun.nl>...
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 05:46:44 +0000, Mr. Vega wrote:
Interesting.. there was an article in National Geographic on a small pond
in Cameroon which suddenly released a lot of carbon dioxide on night and
killed everyone in the surrounding town.
That's interesting indeed, because the pond would have had to release an
awful lot of carbon dioxide to kill someone.
Are you sure it wasn't carbon monoxide?
I read something about lakes *blowing up. Maybe that is what you were refering to.
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| User: "Fred Stone" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
13 Nov 2003 11:37:34 AM |
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G wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 05:46:44 +0000, Mr. Vega wrote:
Interesting.. there was an article in National Geographic on a small pond
in Cameroon which suddenly released a lot of carbon dioxide on night and
killed everyone in the surrounding town.
That's interesting indeed, because the pond would have had to release an
awful lot of carbon dioxide to kill someone.
Are you sure it wasn't carbon monoxide?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1155057.stm
Cameroon's 'killer lake' degassed
An international team of scientists has begun work on siphoning toxic
gas from a volcanic lake in north-western Cameroon.
More than 1,700 people died after deadly gases spewed from Lake Nyos 15
years ago.
Scientists from the United States, France and Cameroon are using a
series of giant pipes to release carbon dioxide from deep down in the
waters of the lake.
They say that pressure from the gas has built up again and a similar
tragedy could happen at any time.
In August 1986, the lake released a cloud of carbon dioxide which hugged
the ground and flowed down surrounding valleys to suffocate thousands of
local villagers and animals...
--
Fred Stone
Illegitimi non Carborundum
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| User: "G" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
14 Nov 2003 02:19:57 AM |
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On Thu, 13 Nov 2003, Fred Stone wrote:
G wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 05:46:44 +0000, Mr. Vega wrote:
Interesting.. there was an article in National Geographic on a small pond
in Cameroon which suddenly released a lot of carbon dioxide on night and
killed everyone in the surrounding town.
That's interesting indeed, because the pond would have had to release an
awful lot of carbon dioxide to kill someone.
Are you sure it wasn't carbon monoxide?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1155057.stm
Cameroon's 'killer lake' degassed
An international team of scientists has begun work on siphoning toxic
gas from a volcanic lake in north-western Cameroon.
More than 1,700 people died after deadly gases spewed from Lake Nyos 15
years ago.
Scientists from the United States, France and Cameroon are using a
series of giant pipes to release carbon dioxide from deep down in the
waters of the lake.
They say that pressure from the gas has built up again and a similar
tragedy could happen at any time.
In August 1986, the lake released a cloud of carbon dioxide which hugged
the ground and flowed down surrounding valleys to suffocate thousands of
local villagers and animals...
Hmm...interesting. Seems that it was indeed an awful lot of carbon
dioxide.
Thanks for the info
--
Eternal Lands: www.eternal-lands.com
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| User: "MarkA" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
14 Nov 2003 06:34:24 AM |
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On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 09:19:57 +0100, G wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003, Fred Stone wrote:
G wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 05:46:44 +0000, Mr. Vega wrote:
Interesting.. there was an article in National Geographic on a small
pond in Cameroon which suddenly released a lot of carbon dioxide on
night and killed everyone in the surrounding town.
That's interesting indeed, because the pond would have had to release
an awful lot of carbon dioxide to kill someone.
Are you sure it wasn't carbon monoxide?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1155057.stm
Cameroon's 'killer lake' degassed
An international team of scientists has begun work on siphoning toxic
gas from a volcanic lake in north-western Cameroon.
More than 1,700 people died after deadly gases spewed from Lake Nyos 15
years ago.
Scientists from the United States, France and Cameroon are using a
series of giant pipes to release carbon dioxide from deep down in the
waters of the lake.
They say that pressure from the gas has built up again and a similar
tragedy could happen at any time.
In August 1986, the lake released a cloud of carbon dioxide which hugged
the ground and flowed down surrounding valleys to suffocate thousands of
local villagers and animals...
Hmm...interesting. Seems that it was indeed an awful lot of carbon
dioxide.
Thanks for the info
So much for "fresh air and sunshine." It's getting so you can't trust
anything these days.
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
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| User: "Hector Plasmic" |
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| Title: Re: God stinks! |
13 Nov 2003 02:18:58 PM |
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Look, if you couldn't sink into your bath even by standing atop its
waters and jumping up and down, would it really be _your_ fault if you
didn't smell like a rose?
Sheesh. And people think being God is all fun and games...
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