Mass extinctions: The microbes strike back
09 February 2008
From New Scientist Print Edition.

AROUND 251 million years ago, in the blink of a geological eye, up to 95 per cent of marine species and 85 per cent of those on land
went extinct. It was the greatest mass extinction the world has ever endured, and it marked the end of the Permian period. Life took
10 million years to recover.

This cataclysmic event is often portrayed as the time when "life nearly died", but that is hardly fair. The oldest and most
successful life forms on Earth - the bacteria and archaea - sailed through virtually unharmed. The Permian extinction is better seen
as a time where life almost went back to normal - when biological conditions that had prevailed on Earth for more than 3 billion
years briefly re-established themselves. The microbes did not merely survive; it now appears that they played a leading role in the
extinctions.

This new view of the Permian comes not from studying fossilised bones, teeth and shells, but from biochemicals that have been
trapped inside rocks for billions of years. This emerging branch of science is called biomarker analysis, or chemical palaeontology,
and it is now so powerful that it threatens to make classical palaeontology obsolete. It provides nothing less than a brand new
perspective on the history of life on Earth. We now know exactly when the first multicellular organisms evolved, and have made
startling insights into the mass extinctions that came to plague them.

Biomarker research has its roots in oil exploration. While palaeontologists dedicated themselves to discovering and describing
extinct organisms, geologists were breaking down sedimentary rocks and searching for organic molecules that would reveal where to
look for oil. All over the world, they found golden liquid residues inside sedimentary rocks rich in organic matter.

So they're going with life starting 2,700,000,000 years ago???

And the little microbes killed off the big dinosaurs???

Ya' know what I wonder (that's rhetorical, of course)??? When a
species becomes extinct, why can't that species come back?? You know,
the same way it did before it ever existed in the first place.

More scientific theories, very interesting again, SirF..

K e v

The bugs were a result of a biologcial weapons of mass destruction
experiment.
When they occurred - those in the know re-wrote history - and the bible - in
order to disguise the fact that they had never existed before.
This was the terrror of the Saddam Hussein incident. That he would unleash
something worse.
THE BORG

On Feb 12, 8:17 pm, kevirwin comcast.net> wrote:

There's no reason that it can't. Try this:

http://www.rit.edu/~rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFinch.html#anchor725315

If the condition of ambiguity remains, then a species could certainly
disappear and then appear again.

-tg

On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:14:07 -0800, Sir Frederick wrote:

I, for one, welcome our microbial overlords.