The Siberian Traps is an area of volcanic rock that is roughly the size of Alaska. Scientists are performing experiments hoping to get a better understanding of how this supervolcano led to the apocalyptic Permian Mass Extinction 250 million years ago. Read about it below.
Siberian Traps Map
Scientists believe that the Permian mass extinction, 250 million years ago, was the worst apocalyptic period for life on Earth. Ninety percent of life on earth died during that period. It was the result of a 200,000 year long assault on earth’s atmosphere by a supervolcano known as The Siberian Traps.
As the name implies, its located in Siberia and therefore had not been accessible to scientists and researchers for study during the Russian Soviet era. With the fall of the Soviet Union, scientists have renewed their efforts to learn more from the Siberian Traps. Henrik Svenson of the University of Oslo in Norway is leading a team of researchers to uncover and understand the mystery of the Traps.
Prime among them was carbon. Searing magmas from the volcano intruded into the Tunguska Basin in eastern Siberia, a region laden with thick deposits of coal, oil and gas. Heat from the molten rock baked the hydrocarbons, turning the area into the world’s largest fossil fuel-burning plant. In all, the volcano may have belched as much as 100,000 gigatons of carbon into the air (all of humanity emits about eight gigatons of carbon annually).
That’s more than enough to cause a global climate apocalypse. But the team also wanted to know what happened when lava infiltrated the area’s abundant salt deposits. When heated in a laboratory to 275 degrees Centigrade (527 degrees Fahrenheit), the salts released a host of toxic gases, chief among them methyl chloride, an efficient ozone-killer.
“This is the first geologically realistic evidence that ozone collapse during the end-Permian could have actually happened,” Svenson said.
You might think at first glance that this supports the theories of Al Gore’s green movement of environmentalist extremist. However, human beings weren’t driving cars and destroying the Earth 250 million years ago, as far as we know, so that creates a bit of a problem in explaining that global warming is the fault of the human race. In addition, the volcano spewed a combination of deadly toxins in the atmosphere for 200,000 years. These are numbers that are hard for us to grasp, but its a lot longer than humans have even been on the earth (as far as we know).
But there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the findings, Linda Elkins-Tanton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.
“There is evidence of a large number of genetic mutations in the fossil record around this time,” she said, which could be the result of an onslaught of ultraviolet radiation due to a weak ozone layer. “But the idea of ozone destroyers is pretty new. The question is whether or not the eruptions were powerful enough to inject gases into the stratosphere.”
The answer may come from close examination of hundreds of pipe-like structures strewn throughout the Tunguska Basin. Often 300 meters (984 feet) in diameter, Svenson’s team believes the pipes are ancient volcanic craters left over after the lethal mix of carbon and chlorine gases exploded into the atmosphere.
Al Gore and his disciples seem to be certain that they know the answers, but most thinking people are not quite so sure. Whatever the case, it is interesting to learn more of these ancient mysteries. One thing that does seem obvious to me is that the Earth will cleanse itself of us long before we have a chance to destroy the Earth. We just aren’t that powerful.
Here are some volcano webcams.
Siberian Traps - Photos