Siberian Traps

The Siberian traps are towering walls of rock 1.5 miles high in Siberia. Layer upon layer of rock is layered in Siberia, and no one can explain how it was formed. One man, exiled to Siberia for committing crimes against Russian government claimed that the traps were formed by eruptions from a massive volcano, and every layer is another eruption. Scientists identified the rocks to be basalt rock, a type of igneous rock that is formed by cooled lava. The rocks at the bottom of the traps were dated, and so were the rocks right at the top, and the duration of the eruption was a long 1 million years. This one million year period of earth’s history has a devastating impact on life on earth.

All around the world, a belt of black rock can be found, called the extinction zone. Almost no fossils found under that belt of rock can be found above it, which means a mass extinction must have happened. This mass extinction was triggered by the violent formation of the Siberian traps. The Siberian traps were created by a mantle plume, a mushroom of lava coming up from the mantle that is trapped by the crust. The lava broke through the crust and made a huge lava flow on the crust, like the one in Hawaii, but fifty thousand times bigger. The eruptions happened in the Triassic period, lasting from 250 to 200 million years ago. Coal was discovered in Siberia, suggesting that it was once a swamp. The lava flow would have wreaked havoc to the land, killing off all life in that area. Another silent killer was lurking. Carbon-dioxide was produced by the massive volcanic activity. The increase of carbon-dioxide levels can be proved by fossils, ginkgo leave fossils. Ginkgo trees existed for a long period of time, and remain relatively unchanged throughout its existence. This makes it the perfect candidate for comparison between the past and the present. The amounts of stomata on plants vary with the amount of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, and if more carbon-dioxide is present in the atmosphere, less stoma would be needed. Fossilized gingko leaves of that period show very few stomata, which means the carbon-dioxide levels were very high at that time. In the seas, the waters are warming up, more and more carbon dioxide is dissolving into the waters, stopping oxygen to enter, killing off most sea life.

Purple bacteria thrive in oxygen depleted areas, and the oxygen depleted seas gave them the perfect breeding grounds. The existence of iron pyrites, nicknamed fool’s gold, also proves this oxygen depleted environment, as iron pyrites can only form in oxygen free conditions. Purple bacteria would give off another potent gas, hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide is a deadly gas that would deplete your system of oxygen, and at the same time poisoning you as it is also a potent neurotoxin. It would also paralyze one’s sense of smell. This deadly combination deprived all life of its essentials, water and air. Furthermore, methane was being produced. The huge coal reserves in Siberia were burning up, producing a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent that carbon-dioxide in trapping heat. This gas, combined with the huge production of carbon-dioxide made the global temperature scale up by 10 degrees. The warming seas melted ice, methane ice, trapped beneath the oceans, a reserve so massive, that it contains more energy than all of the world’s fossil fuels put together.

After one million years, the eruption finally stops. 95% of the world’s life was wiped out. No coal reserves were found the few million years following the eruption, suggesting that although plants did survive, they did not thrive for millions of years following the disaster. This catastrophe eliminated 95% of the competition in life, leaving the strongest 5% of life to continue to live and evolve. Without this, no mammals, dinosaurs, birds or even humans would ever exist. This shows one thing – What does not kill you only makes you stronger.