MIKADEMUS's blog: "REFLECTIONS OF A LYCANTHROPE"

There have been at least five major extinction events since life appeared on our planet. The Ordovician, Late Devonian, Permian Triassic, End Triassic. and the Creataceous-Tertiary with the largest being the Permian Triassic. This "Global Killer" drove life right to the edge 251 million years ago erasing 95% of life over a period of 80,000 years. The is thought to have unfolded in three phases starting with with disappearance of species on land, which eventually moved to the ocean and then back to the land in the final stage. Right at the time of this event the geological record shows that a rare massive volcanic event unfolded in Asia and is known as the "Siberian Traps." It involves the rupturing of the Earth's crust and resulted in a series of eruptions that may have played out over possibly hundreds of thousands of years. The long term result was thought to be a five degree warming of the Earth's climate which some have argued was not high enough to cause so many species to go extinct. So what else might have contributed to this wholesale devastation? The answer possibly lies out in the oceans just off the continental shelves where the water pressure is deep enough and the temperature cold enough to sustain a constituent of decayed plant and animal matter known as "Hydrated Methane." This frozen lattice contains massive amounts of methane which release at normal atmospheric pressure and could exponentially increase the "Green House Effect." It is thought that when the Earth warmed five degrees from the effects of the "Siberia Traps" that it resulted in the release of massive amounts of Methane from the Continental Shelf. This is thought to have resulted in an additional five degree rise in global temperatures bringing the global temperature up ten degrees. The results would be devastating as the fossil record indicated so for the greatest extinction event in the Earth's history there appears to have been two killers. When calculated across all extinction events great and small that have taken place it is astounding to note that 99% of life that has ever existed..... is now extinct, or put another way, for all the richness and diversity we observe in the world today, it represents only 1% of the diversity that has graced this planet. -the man of pech merle.