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Scientific Thoughts

The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility - Albert Einstein

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The southern part of India (the Deccan region) is covered with a layer of ancient lava flow, often 100s of meters thick. The volcanic eruption that caused this magma to come out of the Earth's interior, possibly also wreaked havoc with the climate of the ancient Earth. French and Indian geologists have now identified a 600 meter thick portion of the lava that may have piled up in as little as 30,000 years - fast enough to have possibly caused a deadly global climate shift:):).

Deccan Rocks (Courtesy: University of Hawaii)
According to Anne-Lise Chenet of the Laboratoire de Paleomagnetisme, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), the majority of the total volume of Deccan lava might have been erupted in only a few major events spread over only a small fraction of millennia. To test that hypothesis, the researchers have combined already known ages of the traps gathered from radiometric dating with magnetic fields frozen in the rocks. Volcanic rocks record information about the Earth's magnetic field with magnetic minerals that align with Earth's field like millions of tiny compasses before the lava cools. When the lava solidifies, the compasses are locked in place.
Their study confirms that a rapid eruption did occur, with possibly devastating consequences. It seems that this eruption might weaken the hypothesis that the dinosaurs were wiped out (or in large measure) by a meteorite impact. The time when the meteorite that possibly killed off the dinosaurs crashed into the Earth, is identified by the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) geological boundary in the rock strata, which is rich in Iridium. In the case of the Deccan eruptions, the Iridium layer has been found sandwiched between the lava rocks, suggesting that volcanism started before the impact:).
Now the question is: was the meteorite the cause for the dinosaur extinction, or was it merely the straw that broke the poor dino's back?:-?:-?

Prehistoric Killing Fields

8/09/2005   7 comments Post a Comment

7 Comments:

At August 12, 2005 8:18 AM, Blogger abnegator said...
Umm...I think that there is a possibility of some ET elements who might have landed on earth taken away the dinos in their shuttles and dropped a bomb while leaving :D - which might have caused a dormant volcano to erupt. I dont have any proofs right now ... but yes may be..Okay serious now - yes nice/simple logic. It is a possibility but what is important is is this thing found in all the zones? Were the dinos only where Indian deccam plateau is right now? Aaah..leave it..i dont have much information. By the way - my comment count has decreased..why so?
 
At August 12, 2005 9:01 AM, Blogger Sray said...
:):).. I only count the comments for the 10 posts that are on the main page at any given time. This is to ensure that people keep posting to keep their comment-count up ;);) (actually, counting for older posts is a work in progress :D).
 
At August 12, 2005 10:24 AM, Blogger Kirubakaran A said...
abnegator: interesting thought! or were the dino "fossils" put in by ETs just to sidetrack a whole generation of 'intelligent' humans?
 
At August 12, 2005 4:41 PM, Blogger abnegator said...
kirubakaran - well, may be yes! and that could be what is negative information - read SRay's post on that. The shuttle's velocity was so high I could predict their activities with a little precision..but it has to be this way or that :D :) : thumb :
 
At August 16, 2005 3:48 AM, Blogger Wayne Smallman said...
I watched a program on television about this a few weeks ago.

The evidence for super-volcanic eruptions seems to be growing.

As I understand it, they believe these super-massive eruptions coincide with convection columns of magma being forced up from the core of the Earth...
 
At August 16, 2005 3:56 AM, Blogger Sray said...
There have been supervolcanoes in the past. Yellowstone is a potential supervolcano that could wipe out much of the South-Western USA, for example :-SS...
 
At August 16, 2005 9:38 AM, Blogger Wayne Smallman said...
There was a mini-series about Yellowstone earlier this year.

Quite scary...
 

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