The methane explosion mechanism also could explain several mass extinctions, rapid climate cooling, and even the Biblical flood. After the gas eruption the oceans overspilled, flooding large areas of land; the methane in the atmosphere is loaded with water droplets and it is spreading over the land, losing the water as heavy rain. Methane firestorms carry smoke and dust into the upper atmosphere, where they may remain for several years. The darkness and the significant cooling can destroy large part of the plant mass and the animals. In some cases the result of the methane catastrophe would be global warming.
Ryskin suggests that several smaller-scale eruptions have occurred after the acquisition of language by humans and floods are described in a number of ancient works, like Bibliotheca historica (Historical Library), an immense work of 40 books by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. The Epic of Gilgamesh describes the land set ablaze, “shattered like a [clay] pot,” plunged into darkness, and flooded. In Genesis “All the fountains of the great deep burst forth.”
Ryskin claims that about 10,000 gigatons of dissolved methane gas could have accumulated near the ocean floor under very high pressure. It could be released extremely fast by a powerful earthquake. The methane explosion would be about 10,000 times greater than the world’s entire stockpile of nuclear weapons. The explosions, massive conflagrations, the global flood, the tremendous tsunamis, and overturned oceans several times caused mass extinctions.
Ryskin said, “That amount of energy is absolutely staggering. As soon as one accepts this mechanism, it becomes clear that if it happened once it could happen again. I have little doubt there will be another methane-driven eruption—though not on the same scale as 251 million years ago—unless humans intervene.”
The larger eruptions at great depths could cause mass extinctions and drastic climate changes. The smaller could lead to regional extinctions and global climate changes.
136. Methane-triggered global warming.
This is a milder version of the previous apocalyptic theory—the mass extinctions are triggered by massive perturbation of global climate caused by a catastrophic release of methane gas. In this case, there are no devastating explosions and global floods.
In 2001, a new NASA study by Gavin Schmidt at al. confirmed that a tremendous release of methane gas frozen beneath the sea floor heated the Earth by up to 7°C (13°F) 55 million years ago. A movement of continental plates, like the Indian subcontinent, may have initiated a methane release that led to the catastrophe. The uplift of tectonic plates would have decreased pressure in the sea floor, and have caused the large methane release.
Most greenhouse warning researchers focus mainly on carbon dioxide, but methane is about 20 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere.
When methane enters the atmosphere, it reacts with molecules of oxygen and hydrogen, which combine with methane and break it up, creating carbon dioxide and water vapor; both are greenhouse gases.
Methane clathrate, also known commonly as methane hydrate, is a form of water ice that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure. Large deposits of methane hydrate have been found under sediments on the ocean floors of the Earth.
The rises in sea temperatures (and/or falls in sea level) can trigger a sudden release of methane. Because the methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas, this leads to further temperature rise of the environment and further methane clathrate destabilization. Once started, the initiated runaway process is irreversible until the methane deposits are exhausted.
Some researchers are warning that current global warming could eventually lead to a similar scenario in the future, if the oceans continue to warm up.
The methane release from the oceans could also be triggered by earthquakes, bolide impacts in the oceans, movement of continental plates, changes of the ocean levels, increased global temperatures, etc.
137. Suffocated by carbon dioxide.
In 1986, a deadly eruption at Lake Nyos in Africa killed about 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock. They were suffocated by over 80 million cubic meters of carbon dioxide.
A limnic eruption, also called a lake overturn, is a natural disaster in which dissolved carbon dioxide suddenly erupts from deep lake water, suffocating humans and animals.
Lakes are fed from below by volcanic groundwater charged with carbon dioxideor/and from decomposition of organic material. A layer of gas-saturated water builds up on the lake bottom where the high pressure allows the water to dissolve large amounts of carbon dioxide. Once the lake is saturated, it is very unstable.
At some point, a landslide, a strong storm, a drought, an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, or raise in temperature releases huge amounts of the dissolved carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is heavier than air, and the invisible flood of suffocating gas killed every animal and man in its path.
Eyewitness of the catastrophe said that a water fountain have reached 150 meters (500 feet) in the air, enveloping the area in a lethal mist.
Analysis of Lake Kivu’s geological history indicates sporadic massive biological extinction on millennial timescales.
In the hot Cretaceous climate, the gas-suffocating scenario happened on much larger scale. The deep ocean waters were overturned and immense amounts of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere, suffocating most of the species.
If the released carbon dioxide had not reached high enough levels to kill immediately the land animals, it could be enough to trigger a significantgreenhouse effect, causing mass extinction.
138. Poisoned by hydrogen sulfide.
According to the calculations by geoscientists Lee R. Kump and Michael A. Arthur of Pennsylvania State University, if oxygen levels in the oceans decrease, conditions begin to favor the deep-sea anaerobic bacteria, which proliferate and produce tremendous amounts of hydrogen sulfide. When its concentrations increase beyond a critical threshold, huge bubbles of the toxic gas erupt into the atmosphere, poisoning plants and animals.
Hydrogen sulfide is considered a broad-spectrum poison, although the nervous system is most affected.
Models by Alexander Pavlov of the University of Arizona show that the hydrogen sulfide also can destroy the ozone layer that protects life from the harmful ultraviolet radiation.
139. Tectonic plate movement.
Continents are moving slowly and smoothly, but they could suddenly start moving in a new direction. According to some researchers, such major tectonic plate movement shift occurred about 66 million years ago and changed quickly and drastically the environment. Tectonic plates moved apart, causing major mountain building, and continents began to resemble those existing today. The oceans were experiencing a regression. They receded from the land. Ocean currents and climate changed. Ocean currents can flow for great distances, creating the great flow of the global conveyor belt, which plays a dominant part in determining the climate on Earth. The seasonality increased. The warm, evergreen landscape providing abundant food for billions of huge animals became history.
Dinosaurs died out gradually because of climatic cooling and accompanying changes in vegetation due to plate tectonics. Only a quarter of the species could successfully adapt to the new conditions.
140. Dark matter.
Dark matter is a still-mysterious component of the Universe, which accounts for most of the mass in the Universe. The total mass–energy of the known universe contains about 5 percent ordinary matter, 27 percent dark matter, and 68 percent dark energy.
The dark-matter model of mass extinction was published in the article “Double Mass Extinctions and the Volcanogenic Dark Matter Scenario” by Samar Abbas, Afsar Abbas, and Shukadev Mohanty in 1998.
The Milky Way is enveloped in a dark matter halo, and Earth is experiencing a WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles) wind as the Solar System moves through the Galaxy. Mass extinctions occurs when the planet encounters highly dense, clumped dark matter.
Periodically, about every 30 million years, Earth passes throug
h dense clumps of dark matter. The time of the passage is approximately a few years.
According to this theory, there were two extinction waves. The first one was a result of severe genetic mutations, and the species massively died off from cancer.
Konstantin Zioutas, University of Thessaloniki, Greece, 1990, reported in his article “Evidence of dark matter from biological observations” the effect of dark matter on living organisms, and concluded that dark matter may be responsible for mutations and cancers in living beings.
The second wave, which was delayed by a few millions years, was caused by intensive volcanic activity because the Earth’s core is heated by the passage of clumped dark matter. “The accumulation and annihilation of dark matter in the center of the Earth due to the passage of a clump leads to excess heat generation with the consequent ejection of superplumes, followed by massive volcanism and attendant mass extinctions.”
The authors of this theory suggested that the dark matter may be the cause of the major periodic mass extinctions in the history of Earth, as well as the unique double pulse of extinction for each of the cases.
141. Meteoric shower.
A huge number of relatively small meteorites hit Earth and caused numerous wildfires and heated the atmosphere. The prolonged smoke clouds prevented normal photosynthesis and most of the plants perished. The food chain was severely disturbed and a great number of the animals starved to death. The subsequent little ice age greatly reduced the species.
142. Proliferation of fungi.
In his article “Fungal virulence, vertebrate endothermy, and dinosaur extinction: is there a connection?” published in 2005, Arturo Casadevall presents the theory that fungal diseases could have contributed to the demise of dinosaurs and the flourishing of mammalian species.
The very rapid evolution of fungi, especially poisonous species, hugely contributedto the demise of the dinosaurs, which were very susceptible to fungal diseases, just like modern reptiles. Fungi are frequent pathogens in insects, amphibians, and plants.
Mammals are naturally resistant to fungal diseases because they are warm-blooded.
Arturo Casadevall wrote, “This raises the question, if reptiles were previously so successful, why did they not reclaim the earth to launch a second reptilian age? It is difficult to imagine how mammals could have replaced reptiles as the dominant land forms without some selection mechanism for this energetically costly lifestyle. This led me to propose the hypothesis that fungal proliferation after the devastation of the KT event preferentially selected for the fungal-resistant endothermic and hindered the re-emergence of a second reptilian age.”
143. Electromagnetic impulse.
Powerful electromagnetic impulses from Earth’s core destroyed the ozone layer. The flora and the fauna were killed off by the high radiation and the changed climate.
The Earth’s magnetic field is generated by strong electric currents in the conductive material of its core, created by convection currents due to heat escaping from the core. Sometimes the core is disturbed by inner processes, creating powerful electromagnetic impulses.
144. Close flyby.
Close flyby by a huge asteroid or comet stripped some of the atmosphere of Earth. The air pressure suddenly became much lower and the animals became short of breath. The climate became cooler and seasonality increased. The protective ozone layer was destroyed. Only a small part of the flora and the fauna could survive the changes.
145. Combined effect of pollutants.
Analysis of dinosaur fossilized bones and eggs show high levels of some poisonous trace elements.
Li Kui, Curator of the Museum of the Chengdu College of Polytechnics, in China said, “The content of arsenic, chrome and other trace elements in the fossil bones are apparently high. It is most likely that dinosaurs took in too much plants containing lethal elements.”
The sources of such pollutions could be volcanoes, wildfires, coal fires, burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, or gas), massive biological decay, space bodies, or cosmic molecular clouds. By the end of the Cretaceous period there were huge amounts of open deposits of dead plants, peat, and coal. Vaporization of arsenic, selenium, and antimony during coal combustion and coal pyrolysis also could be a serious source of pollution.
Pollutions from space also could destroy periodically large groups of plants and animals. There are huge clouds of all sorts of chemicals all around the cosmos, and sometimes the Solar System crosses such agglomerates, polluting heavily the atmosphere, the landscape, and the ocean of the planet.
The flora and the fauna at the end of Cretaceous were poisoned by arsenic, osmium, iridium, chrome, cyanide, nickel, etc.
Higher levels of these toxic chemical elements were found in the K-Pg boundary clay and in the fossils.
146. Holographic glitch or just a code.
The Holographic Universe: The Revolutionary Theory of Reality by Michael Talbotis one of the most provocative books of our time. The author writes that “there is evidence to suggest that our world and everything in it. . . are also only ghostly images, projections from a level of reality so beyond our own it is literally beyond both space and time.”
The physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, both independently arrived at a holographic model of the universe.
There are many implications of this theory. The holographic model of the Universe can also explain the dinosaur extinction in two ways. First, the K-Pg mass extinction was just a glitch, a short-lived fault in the System. Second, mass extinctions are part of the code of the System. There is still no explanation whether this self-sustained and self-controlled System is under external guidance or whether it is an entirely closed system.
Leonard Susskind, a theoretical physicist at Stanford University, is one of the first theoreticians who explored the idea of a holographic universe. He is one of the founders of the string theory. Susskind said that the work of the Japaneseresearchers Yoshifumi Hyakutake and his colleagues from Ibaraki University published in the article “Quantum Near Horizon Geometry of Black 0-Brane” in 2013, “numerically confirmed, perhaps for the first time, something we were fairly sure had to be true, but was still a conjecture.”
Several researchers claim that they have experimentally tested and proved the holographic model of our Universe.
147. Space alcohol and BBQ.
The Solar System moving around the Galaxy center passes through various interstellar clouds, containing all sorts of molecules, including inflammable gases, alcohol, etc.
The British scientists Tom Millar, Geoffrey MacDonald, and Rolf Habing said that the cloud, located near the constellation Aquila, contains enough alcohol to make 400 trillion trillion pints of beer, presently lost in space. They have estimated the size of this cloud at approximately 1,000 times the diameter of the Solar System
Fortunately, 66 million years ago Earth passed through such a cloud of alcohol and all Cretaceous creatures, including the dinosaurs, were constantly intoxicated by inhaling alcohol. Theystarted fighting all the time andwere interested mainly in promiscuity (the practice of having casual sex frequently with different partners or of being indiscriminate in the choice of sexual partners). They forgot to eat, their morals degraded. Then Earth entered a region of much higher alcohol concentration and the entire atmosphere started burning. The oxygen level at that time was very high, over 30% or even higher (now it is 21% only) and the largest ever BBQ on our planet burned almost all species.
What a waste of alcohol! What a waste of grilled meats and vegetables!
On the other hand, researchers do not find fossilizedanimal bones in the K-Pg boundary layer. Maybe some creatures feasted anyway and have eaten all that tasty mountains of meat and tender grilled bones contrary to the belief that most of the animals died of hunger after the Cretaceous catastrophe. After the BBQ event the Earth continued its passage through the alcohol cloud, and survivors enjoyed endless free drinks and monstrous amounts of grilled meat. The Mesozoic world did not end wi
th a whimper, but with the largest feast in the history of this planet.
Nota Bene
The only way for our civilization to survive and prosper is to colonize space, and come back on Earth and to the new colonies to restore them after a natural catastrophe or a clash with other civilization.
In the immediate future mankind should become powerful enough to control the orbits of the dangerous space bodies.
Good luck, humanity. You will need all the luck in the Universe because you will face grand-scale natural disasters and innumerable powerful enemies.
Discussion
(more likely questions without answers)
If you believe in something or anything, do not read this! If you think that contemporary science knows the answers, don’t bother to read these few sentences!
When analyzing the Cretaceous mass extinction, its role, and the consequences on the evolution on Earth in the context of the overall development of the Universe and Intelligence, we inevitably come to questions concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world around us.
What is ultimately there? What is it really like? Is the evolution of life and intelligence on our planet under control of higher intelligence?
Was the K-Pg catastrophe really an accident or it was engineered to accelerate the emergence and development of intelligence? Are we under strict, constant evolutionary control? What could be the extent of the control? Who or what is the possible controlling entity?
Did our Universe inherit characteristics and evolutionary patterns from its parent universe?
Dinosaur Killers Page 17
