Permian Damage

‘WHAT President Bush is trying to do today, a huge asteroid succeeded in doing 250 million years ago - namely, causing the greatest mass extinction on record.

A genuine 250 million-year-old photograph of the moment of impact (Source: Mirrorpics)

And scientists now believe they have found the culprit, hidden (as is the way with so many mass murderers and others of the criminal persuasion) in Australia.

The Independent reports that geologists have located a huge undersea crater off the coast of Western Australia where they think the giant asteroid hit with the force of 1 million nuclear bombs.

About 90 per cent of marine organisms and 80 per cent of land animals and plants died out at the end of the Permian and the beginning of the Triassic periods, the paper says, for reasons that had not previously been explained.

‘Some scientists have suggested that severe volcanic eruptions at the time may have sent soot and ash into the atmosphere and shut out the sunlight for years,’ it says - although the same could be said of Manchester and there is still life of some form there.

‘Others have suggested that climate change, brought about by the formation of a supercontinent, was the cause.’

The great dying at the end of the Permian period is known as the greatest of the five mass extinctions.

An impact crater at Chicxulub in Mexico is thought to be responsible for the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

A moron in the White House is doing his best to become responsible for the sixth one…’

Posted: 14th, May 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink