Atmospheric oxygen & Romer's gap

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Gautam Majumdar - 25 Oct 2006 06:43 GMT

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061023193630.htm

Signature

Gautam Majumdar

Please send e-mails to gmajumdar@freeuk.com

Reply to this Message

don kenney - 26 Oct 2006 16:35 GMT

> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061023193630.htm
> --
>
> Gautam Majumdar
>
> Please send e-mails to gmajumdar@freeuk.com

You wouldn't happen to know where the Oxygen went? The article doesn't
seem to address that subject. Seems to me that any phenomenon capable
of removing nearly half the Earth's free Oxygen from the atmosphere
would leave some pretty distinctive signatures. And you'd think would
also play hell with marine invertebrates dependent on dissolved Oxygen
as well. I'm certainly no expert on Silurian sedimentology, but I
can't think of anything in either the Western or Eastern US Silurian
that would indicate really massive fixation of Oxygen.

How solid is the evidence for Oxygen depletion at that time?

Reply to this Message

Gautam Majumdar - 26 Oct 2006 19:59 GMT

>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061023193630.htm --
>>
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> How solid is the evidence for Oxygen depletion at that time?

I am not very impressed by the article. The Romer's gap itself is
shrinking all the time & some people question its very existence. Jennifer
Clack described transitional fossil right from the middle of the Romer's
gap.

Clack J, An early tetrapod from Romer's Gap, Nature 418, 72 - 76

Signature

Gautam Majumdar

Please send e-mails to gmajumdar@freeuk.com

Reply to this Message

Natural Science Forum / Biology / Paleontology / October 2006

Atmospheric oxygen & Romer's gap