How Did Toxic Gas Wipe Out The Dinosaurs But Spare Our Ancestors?

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by common_sense_seeker, Nov 3, 2009.

  1. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    Toxin producing "killer" algae wiped off the dinosaurs, claims new study. It's an interesting idea with lots of potential imo. I was thinking about the ones which survived though; were our ancestors hibernating underground and trapped in a pocket of clean air? Did the avian birds soar above the toxic gas which spread across the globe's surface? I agree with the toxic gas idea, but was the deadly effect immediately after the meteorite impact, or was it a longer more lingering extinction due to the explosion of algae, which this study suggests?
     
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  3. baftan ******* Valued Senior Member

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    OK, but the question of "what caused this toxic gas?" is still hanging there...
     
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  5. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    The report agrees on the meteorite impact of course, and I'm arguing that this in itself could cover the globe (temporarily) in deadly toxic gas just from the impact, without the effect of the later algae.

    btw: there's a program on TV tonight (UK) which features the release of CO2 from a lake in Africa which hung in the air and killed around 2000 people silently in the night. Spooky stuff. We all need to breath oxygen; if it's gone for more than a few minutes then we're all dead! A Killer Lake
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2009
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  7. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    ***Moderator Note***

    This thread has been moved for a number of reasons, including, the OP misunderstanding or misrepresenting the article, which should be self evident to anyone reading the article, including the thread starter.

    While genuinely misunderstanding the article is no crime and represents a learning opportunity, the thread starter has a demonstrable history of posting and defending aphysical or out right nonsensical ideas.
     
  8. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    so was this algea in fresh or salt water?
     
  9. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    It must be salt water obviously to have the global effect.
     
  10. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    ???
     
  11. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    why obviously? Did it only kill marine animals then?
     
  12. superstring01 Moderator

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    It was a lack of oxigen and temperature shifts. Our warm bloodedness and our possession of a diaphragm that allowed us to compensate for these factors.

    ~String
     
  13. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Most effective against large animals. Croc size and below seem to have got by. Or perhaps they were more caiman-size.
     
  14. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    The article appears to be referring to a waterborne toxin, not an airborne one.
     
  15. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    so could a salt-waterbourne toxin survive in fresh water?
     
  16. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    I thought it was pretty self explanatory really - what about it do you find confusing?
     
  17. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    No reason it shouldn't, and algal blooms do happen in fresh water as well.

    The wording of parts of the article, for example, where it refers to plants taking the toxin up through their roots, bioaccumulating it and killing herbivores suggests that the author is considering primarily freshwater rather than salt water blooms.

    But then he goes and confounds the issue by discussing dust fertilizing water bodies, which is the primary source of marine algal blooms (although such a mechanism might exist affecting large lakes).
     
  18. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    I must have mis-read the article. Sorry everyone.
     
  19. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    They agree that the dust is due to the meteorite impact, don't they? So, I think I was putting a slightly alternative view forward; that the algae effect could be significant but small compared to lack of oxygen immediately after the blast. Anyone see what I mean?
     
  20. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    It still wouldn't have got far-inland types. And exactly how much herbivorous bioaccumulation goes on from the saltwater to the terrestrial environment anyway? It's a red herring.
     
  21. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    Don't you think that the professional university team would have done the calclations to show that it would have reached the center of every continent? What about the blast from the meteor impact? That would reach inland wouldn't it?
     
  22. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Professional university types screw up their own damn work about half the time. I recall fondly a genetic mapping paper with an n of less than 30. As for the meteor blast: a meteor impact put iridium and millions of tons of dust into the air. No surprise that large animals all over would get the whack. Then again, why would small dinosaurs also die off? It's a mystery. Maybe endotherms larger than rat size couldn't hack it either due to the energetics, while small endos lived off corpses and ectotherms just went into torpor, where they survived.
     
  23. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe there's an additional reasoning why some species in particular survived. The mammal ancestors could have been hibernating and trapped in their burrows after the initial blast. Crocodiles go dormant and survive due to the low oxygen requirement. Mammal ancestor hibernators would have a low oxygen requirement. The tuatara lizard can survive on one breathe an hour or something - that's why IT survived.
     

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