01 May 2012
Did Oxygen-Poor Waters Kill the Dinosaurs?
Could events that occurred around 252 million years ago parallel events that are currently being observed? In two recent studies, from UC-Santa Cruz and Stanford, scientists are suggesting that the high levels of atmospheric carbon from volcanoes could have had a previously negated primary effect on oceanic organisms, especially those with calcium carbonate tests, before other organisms. They concluded that the high levels of atmospheric carbon-based gases led exacerbated the extinction of up to 95% of marine organisms through a warming, acidification, and oxygen-reduction of the oceans. With our emissions eclipsing those of volcanic emissions, are we leading ourselves towards another mass extinction? Read more about it here.
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It's interesting that this article makes explicit a point that people don't understand about environmental concerns: we're trying to save ourselves, not the planet. The planet will survive whatever we do to it because it will recover and adapt and new life will form, but it is this specific biological environment that is able to sustain us. If we don't maintain this environment in which we're able to live, it's humans that will suffer the consequences... not the earth.
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