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Bud Brewster Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 17020 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2018 1:19 pm Post subject: Exploding Stars Helped Kill Earth's Ancient Sea Monsters! |
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Nearly One-Third of Ocean Animals Perished 2.6 Million Years Ago
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer
For tens of millions of years, Earth's oceans were crowded with 5,000-lb. (2,200 kilograms) turtles, whale-size sea cows and sharks as large as school buses. Then, about 2.6 million years ago, they started dying in droves.
The mass die-off known as the Pliocene marine megafauna extinction may have wiped out more than a third of Earth's large marine species (including the beloved megalodon — a Jaws-like shark that measured up to 80 feet, or 25 meters, long). Today, scientists still don't know exactly why it happened.
A new paper scheduled to be published in the 2019 edition of the journal Astrobiology suggests one bold possibility: Perhaps exploding stars helped slay the giants of the deep.
According to Adrian Melott, lead study author and professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, there is evidence that a nearby supernova — or possibly a string of multiple supernovas — coincided with the start of the great die-off that rid the world of its largest marine life.
If these stellar explosions were strong enough and close enough to Earth, they could have drenched the world in stellar radiation, gradually raising the incidence of mutation rates and cancers among Earthly fauna for hundreds of years.
This amped-up supply of cosmic radiation, coupled with other known factors like climate change, could have been one of the levers of change that doomed Earth's marine giants.
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Okay, so that's the SCIENCE. Now let's add the FICTION!
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How might this theory fit in with my New Land Unknown concept for a hidden sea beneath the Antarctic ice? Click here to find out!
Beneath Antarctica's Ice, Evidence of Lost Continents! _________________ ____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958) |
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