[meteorite-list] Fossils Offer Support for Meteor'sRoleinDinosaurExtinc...

From: MarkF <mafer_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Sep 23 20:07:13 2005
Message-ID: <018e01c5c09b$a47545a0$01fea8c0_at_MAF>

Hi Doug
I did set the bar high, because some of the researchers actually believe the
event was so powerful, the ozone layer itself would have been blasted away
1000 times over (their own words when challenged on the subject. Without
ozone at all, there would be very little life period being totally
unprotected from radiation which got past the magnetic field around earth.
Having said that, I did say that a study of forams associated with a marine
reptile would give very good evidence and possibly supply leads that people
are (non-paleontologists) scrambling to find to back up their own work in
physics and such about the K-T event.
But, to date, they have not and they assume, that their calculations prove
all and are supported by forams, when in fact, their calculations would have
wiped the earth clean of forams and most other life that didn't require
sunlight to live.
Thats the arguement in a nutshell.

Good talk were having here, should we take it off list though?

Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: <MexicoDoug_at_aol.com>
To: <mafer_at_imagineopals.com>
Cc: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fossils Offer Support for
Meteor'sRoleinDinosaurExtinc...


> Hola Mark, List,
>
> Nice link of "carbonized petrified wood" from Ecuador, thank
> you...however,
> it appears to me that the "carbonized" adjective in that particular URL
> refers
> to trees that were dried under a bed of fine warm volcanic ash, according
> to
> those authors, where some of the mineralization occuring in the
> petrification process forming stable carbon minerials derived from the
> original organic
> carbon in the organic matter. It doesn't sound like they are claiming
> that
> the fine detail also shows evidence that the fossils were burned, in your
> use
> of "charred" and "carbonized". On the contrary the authors seem to be
> agreeing with the point I made: That the temperature couldn't have been
> too hot -
> or the detail would have been lost - they quote 150 C as the maximum.
> Wood
> doesn't burn at that temperature.
>
> To try to bridge our gap, I'll agree that you could probably come up with
> several examples of petrified wood where arguments have been made alleging
> charring of the "burnt" variety. There are a couple of orders of
> magnitude more
> of biomass of plant material than animal, though. The examples you will
> probably dig up are from lava flows where several meters of inorganic
> volcanic
> ash buries anerobically in near laboratory produced conditions, a perfect
> insulating, thick disinfected layer of ash from which leaching of
> volcanic
> minerials into the integral organic structures can grow minerals in the
> orientations
> we can recognize as a fossil, long after the original mold has vanished.
>
> If we can agree that these events are specialized cases, and that the
> supposed KT impact was of quite a different variety scrambling all kinds
> of
> unsterilized, non-uniform, matter, much like a variable garbage heap, we
> now have a
> different situation where I don't believe anyone has actually show that
> burnt
> fossils - if that sort of original burnt product even existed - can
> actually
> form under these circumstances.
>
> My motivation to respond was that you are shooting down marine organisms
> as
> indicators of global and regional climate change by refusing to consider
> its
> implications on the fauna of the region. In fact, it is the best we
> have.
> I'll gladly give to you that it isn't "proof", and that certain
> researchers in
> their enthusiasm think they can explain the entire world with a hammer,
> or
> whatever tool they have become proficient and familiar using. But
> chronostratigraphy is a very serious and developed science which provides
> indicators
> that a comprehensive extinction theory must be consistent explaining as
> one of
> the first things it does - if great changes are noticed. You might
> attribute
> it to abrupt changes in nutrient availability - well, perhaps, but the
> Forams
> are rather widespread across the world and when correlations indicating
> water temperature are very consistent with many diverse theories, I must
> admit I
> get amazed at the power of this sort climatic analysis.
>
> On the other hand, you set the bar quite high, perhaps in joking, it is
> not
> clear to me...You would demand a paleontologist show you burnt dinosaur
> bones
> to back up his babblings derived from Forams before you would take him
> seriously. I disagree. Perhaps I am a bit ignorant on this, but I am
> having
> great difficulty imagining how dino bones would get nicely burnt and then
> petrified with the upheaval of tsunamis, rocks and bb's, from the sky,
> storms,
> winds, maybe fires, etc... It just sounds like a huge mess to me. I
> picked a
> tree as it would be the easiest in my opinion to conserve charring marks
> if
> anything could. I try to imagine how the bland tissue of a dinosaur
> could be
> surgically removed and then bone charred, and that conserved in this
> scenario by
> fossilization (especially considering the possible invasion of corrosive
> salt water).
>
> When we barbeque an animal, do we get burnt bones out of it? With all
> that
> mean around it?
>
> Now given the 65,000,000 years that have elapsed, the relative uncommoness
> of macro-fossilization when not ocurring under perfect conditions, when
> sediments move, etc., the relative infrequent finds of dino bones, I think
> you are
> asking for a standard of proof that is too tall an order, though it would
> be
> great if it could turn up. That may be what is being hunted in the
> article
> on Cuba - which perhaps is the right distance from the alleged KT crater,
> to
> get a partial burning...not to close, not too far...
>
> Where I am going with all this is, while I don't disagree with your
> arguments against the chronostratigraphists, any other proof so far from
> the boundary
> event(s) is equally or more likely more inconclusive than the ideas
> gleaned
> from analysis of the Foramifera and the implications of global climate
> change
> that they indicate.
>
> 65,000,000 years ago, with modern science everything seems a our
> fingertips.
> That feeling quickly vanishes when one goes out into the field, the
> rubber
> (shoes) meet the road (outcrops)and has to deal with a few ugly
> anachronistic
> fragments of petrified rocks. Even the petrification process is not too
> well understood for a given fossil...
>
> That's why I give the paleontologists studying microfossil stratigraphy
> their respect for the tools they offer and wonderful information they
> have
> gleaned for us all. But that isn't carte blanche, and I agree that we
> need to look
> at all surviving angles. For example, before finding that charred dino
> bone, can you at least show me a 65,000,000 charred earth rock or
> meteorite from
> the event? Not shocked quartz. Why would that be so hard to do if wood
> is
> no problem?
>
> Saludos, Doug
>
> Mark Fe wrote:
>
>>Hi Doug and List
>
>>Actually, there are chared and carbonized stumps within flows. Simple
> google
>>search turn this up:
>>http://www.internacional.edu.ec/publicaciones/arco_iris/001/english/magazine0
> 01b.htm
>>A piece of burned bone which had been carbonized would leave a distinct
>>trace fossil as opposed to a mineralized fossil.
>
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Received on Fri 23 Sep 2005 08:05:15 PM PDT