Adventures in Geology – Part 2

I’ve been watching NOVA since the late 1970s, and that & other PBS shows from that time (for example:  Cosmos hosted by Carl Sagan, North America : the making of a continent) are a lot of the reason why I decided to get a degree.

Since I’ve been teleworking I’ve had the opportunity to watch several NOVA episodes during my lunch breaks, and a couple play right into my fascination with extinction (I sound so Goth!)  A great one is “The Day the Dinosaurs Died.”

 

Credit: Don Davis, NASA

What a day that was 66 million years ago when a 7.5 mile wide meteor came crashing into the Yucatan Peninsula at over 40,000 miles per hour releasing energy equivalent  to 10 billion Hiroshima bombs.  That meteor punched a hole in the earth 20 miles deep and 124 miles wide, and 2000 feet of liquefied granite and rock debris from giant tsunamis was deposited in that one day in the Chicxulub crater.  Normally 10 feet of limestone in that same crater takes 10 million years to deposit.  Also, sulfur from vaporized gypsum caused the atmosphere, planet wide, to become as hot as a pizza oven.  Then sulfuric acid rained down, which acidified the oceans and killed the giants of that realm.  75% of all species died because of that impact; however, life prevailed, and we are here as proof.

More on how that life prevailed in my next post about the NOVA episode, “Rise of the Mammals.”

We will prevail through this pandemic also!

Adventures in Geology – Part 1

Hello Everyone,

As my previous post indicated, I’ve been using telework as an opportunity to learn more about Geology.  Thus far I’ve read/listened to a book entitled, “The Sixth Extinction.”  NOTE:  There is no eBook version available through OhioLINK, but it can be found on Audible.

This book describes the mass extinction happening with amphibians throughout the globe, bats in North America, and other cases of recent extinctions.  Sadly amphibian & bat extinctions are being caused by virulent fungi.

Male Golden Toad / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Public Domain

White Nose disease in an American Brown Bat / NPS photo/von Linden

The book also discusses: the beginning of modern paleontology & the first Mastodon bones found in Kentucky, modern human’s possible role in the extinction of the Mega Fauna, and our possible role in the extinction of other species of humans such as the Neanderthal.  It also presents the theory that we are in a new geologic epoch right now, called the Anthropocene.

While this may seem like depressing subject matter while teleworking, it is a Pulitzer Prize winning book that is very entertaining.

My next post will be about a couple of NOVA episodes that I’ve watched about an earlier mass extinction and nature’s response to it.