Space rock caused 'great dying'

Scientists have found new evidence that the greatest extinction in the Earth's history was triggered by an asteroid.
About 250 million years ago, something unknown wiped out most of the life on the planet.

It was far more devastating than the impact that ended the rule of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

New geological evidence suggests that the "great dying" was caused by a space rock slamming into the Earth.

Dozens of rare mineral grains found in ancient rocks in Antarctica could be the "smoking gun", according to scientists in the US.

Rest here: news.bbc.co.uk...

So if these asteroids come in cycles at certain times, going by the date of this does it mean that another one is not due for approx. another 100m years? If so I guess we've got nothing to worry about.

Very interesting

Another thing that could be responsible for great dying, and it DOES occur in cycles, is flood basalt, the largest volcano-like eruption on the planet.

More can be found here:
www.geolsoc.org.uk...


Maybe a few of these catastrophic events: meteor, flood basalt, super volcano etc etc, occured simultaneously in the past, causing mass extinctions on the entire planet.

That's an interesting thought. Maybe it could be one of those unlucky coincidenses that happen all at once. I can't really see that happening though be you never know.
It looks like are days are numbered when considering the amount of ways this Universe and our planet can kick our ass.

Well if you think about it, it does make sense, but then again seems impossible for one reason... If volcano like eruption had occured, then that would have cause "nuclear winter" on earth if this volcano was large enough.. Mammals are much more likely to survive a event like than instead of reptiles. Since mammals can regulate their body temp where as reptiles need the sun or some other source of heat, it just seems more likely that since reptiles are smaller than most mammals and in most cases, can take more abuse, that when a asteroid is the more plausable excuse.

Originally posted by John Nada
So if these asteroids come in cycles at certain times, going by the date of this does it mean that another one is not due for approx. another 100m years? If so I guess we've got nothing to worry about.

From what I understand about the layout of our solar system within this galaxy, that may not be true that we have "nothing to worry about".

As our solar system rides along the path-of-spin that our arm of the galaxy takes, we move "up & down" across the cetral plane of the galactic equator. We make a full cycle of "galactic altitude" once about every 30 million years; While in the lower altitudes of our cycle, we pass into a more highly concentrated belt of galactic debris, which our Sun picks up as new asteroids & comets. This pretty much means that every 30 million years, our solar system "replenishes" its supply of such debris that eventually either escapes solar gravity or settles into a long solar orbit.

According to astronomers, we've just *left* that belt of galactic debris about 2 million years ago; But it takes about 2 million years for that newly-captured debris to reach the area of Earth's orbit...