Gigantic meterite impact foiund

[marcus]

Triassic extinction meteor crater in Antarctic

Ohio state press release here
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/erthboom.htm

Pictures here
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/erthboompix.htm

possible cause of Permian-Triassic extinction circa 250 million years BP

larger crater and larger inferred explosion than the one that coincided with the end of dinosaurs 65 million years BP

found by mapping fluctuations in gravity, using satellite

 

[Mk]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060601/ap_on_sc/hot_arctic

Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees. It's smack in the middle of the Arctic.

First-of-its-kind core samples dug up from deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor show that 55 million years ago an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise, three new studies show.

 

[Mk]

I guess I'm a little late, oh well, move post:

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn9268&feedId=space_rss20

A huge crater has been discovered in Antarctica via gravity measurements from space. The find has led geologists to speculate that the huge meteorite that may have caused it prompted the biggest mass extinction in the Earth's history and caused the break up of an early supercontinent, spawning Australia.

The gravity measurements were obtained by the GRACE satellites and show a 300-mile-wide (483km) structure that is now hidden more than one mile (1.6 km) beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (see diagram).

Ralph von Frese, at Ohio State University in the US, and colleagues say the Wilkes Land crater is more than twice the size of the Chicxulub crater in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, which marks the impact that is thought to have killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

While the meteorite that created the Chicxulub crater is thought to have been six miles (9.6 km) wide, the Antarctic meteorite could have been up to 30 miles wide (48.3 km).

 

[quantumcarl]

Ohio state press release here
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/erthboom.htm

Pictures here
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/erthboompix.htm

possible cause of Triassic-Permian extinction circa 250 million years BP

larger crater and larger inferred explosion than the one that coincided with the end of dinosaurs 65 million years BP

found by mapping fluctuations in gravity

Its alway antartica with the big news.

 

[pallidin]

From your link:

"It probably was (a tropical paradise) but the mosquitoes were probably the size of your head," said Yale geology professor Mark Pagani, a study co-author.

 

[marcus]

Wikipedia has a good article on the P-T extinction event

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_extinction

this article has already been updated to include information about the impact crater that this thread is about (Wiki is quick )

 

[Mk]

I didn't realize the title didn't change on the main page.

In the arctic we still have head-sized mosquitos. They come out in spring in Alaska.