Re: End of the Paleozoic

Hi Joachim, 

This isn't the whole story.  According to current continental drift 
theory, most of the continents were joined at that time in a huge 
supercontinent known as Pangea.  By the end of the Permian, it was 
breaking up to leave the southern part what was destined to become 
Gondwana.  This land mass stretched across the south pole.  It had 
been experiencing a major glaciation since Carboniferous times.  
These conditions contributed to the cold dry conditions with much of 
the oceans' water tied up in the massive southern polar ice sheets.  

Paul

Joachim Pense wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> this summer, I watched a TV documentation which stated that the Paleozoic
> was ended like this:
> - First, there was a giant vulcanic activity around what is Siberia today
> (it sounded like more or less the greater part of the continent was
> covered with lava)
> - This led to a winter lasting several years,
> - followed by a global warming.
> - This warming alone was not enough to lead to the mass extinction; but it
> triggered the massive release of undersea frozen methane which - by
> greenhouse effect - amplified the global warming leading to the observed
> mass extinction, a process lasting around thousand years.
> 
> Questions:
> - Is this the current widely accepted theory?
> - Did I get the points right?
> - Why was the winter lasting for some years not sufficient for a mass
> extinction? I imagine such a situation as being fairly deadly for many
> species...
> 
> Joachim
> 
> --
> I'd rather run Unix than Windows or MacOS any day, because Unix sucks less.
> That doesn't mean it doesn't suck. (Jamie Zawinski)