To: Bilow who wrote (778845 ) 4/7/2014 12:18:44 PM From: bentway Respond to I never mentioned methane hydrates dillweed, I just posted an article from Newser ( a news aggregator ) that cited several sources, an posited an extinction 250 million years ago caused by methane produced by microbes. Here, why don't YOU do due diligence and FOLLOW THE LINKS (the links are in BLUE TYPE, moron ):newser.com Guardian . As in microscopically smaller. MIT scientists propose that a microbe called Methanosarcina proliferated in the oceans, disgorging huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere and making life in the water and on land all but impossible for most species.Ars Technica . So what caused the microbes to explode in numbers? That's where those volcanoes may have played a role, though a lesser one than has been long surmised. Scientists think a flurry of eruptions in Siberia resulted in a huge increase in nickel, upon which Methanosarcina happens to thrive. An estimated 90% of marine species were wiped out in the changed atmosphere, along with 70% of land vertebrates. It took millions of years for both to recover, with the first dinosaurs showing up about 20 million years later, reports Reuters . (Scientists recently determined that the Permian mass extinction happened really, really quickly .)
