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Antarctica Served as Climatic Refuge in Earth's Greatest Extinction Even

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Thor:

--- Quote ---Antarctica Served as Climatic Refuge in Earth's Greatest Extinction Event

ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2009) — The largest known mass extinction in Earth's history, about 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian Period, may have been caused by global warming. A new fossil species suggests that some land animals may have survived the end-Permian extinction by living in cooler climates in Antarctica. Jörg Fröbisch and Kenneth D. Angielczyk of The Field Museum together with Christian A. Sidor from the University of Washington have identified a distant relative of mammals, Kombuisia antarctica, that apparently survived the mass extinction by living in Antarctica.

The new species belongs to a larger group of extinct mammal relatives, called anomodonts, which were widespread and represented the dominant plant eaters of their time.

"Members of the group burrowed in the ground, walked the surface and lived in trees," said Fröbisch, the lead author of the study. "However, Kombuisia antarctica, about the size of a small house cat, was considerably different from today's mammals -- it likely laid eggs, didn't nurse its young and didn't have fur, and it is uncertain whether it was warm blooded," said Angielczyk, Assistant Curator of Paleomammology at The Field Museum. Kombuisia antarctica was not a direct ancestor of living mammals, but it was among the few lineages of animals that survived at a time when a majority of life forms perished.

Scientists are still debating what caused the end-Permian extinction, but it was likely associated with massive volcanic activity in Siberia that could have triggered global warming. When it served as refuge, Antarctica was located some distance north of its present location, was warmer and wasn't covered with permanent glaciers, said the researchers. The refuge of Kombuisia in Antarctica probably wasn't the result of a seasonal migration but rather a longer-term change that saw the animal's habitat shift southward. Fossil evidence suggests that small and medium sized animals were more successful at surviving the mass extinction than larger animals. They may have engaged in "sleep-or-hide" behaviors like hibernation, torpor and burrowing to survive in a difficult environment.

Earlier work by Fröbisch predicted that animals like Kombuisia antarctica should have existed at this time, based on fossils found in South Africa later in the Triassic Period that were relatives of the animals that lived in Antarctica. "The new discovery fills a gap in the fossil record and contributes to a better understanding of vertebrate survival during the end-Permian mass extinction from a geographic as well as an ecological point of view," Fröbisch said.

The team found the fossils of the new species among specimens collected more than three decades ago from Antarctica that are part of a collection at the American Museum of Natural History. "At the time those fossils were collected, paleontologists working in Antarctica focused on seeking evidence for the existence of a supercontinent, Pangaea, that later split apart to become separate land masses," said Angielczyk. The fossils collected in Antarctica provided some of the first evidence of Pangaea's existence, and further analysis of the fossils can refine our understanding of events that unfolded 250 million years ago.

"Finding fossils in the current harsh conditions of Antarctica is difficult, but worthwhile," said Angielczyk. "The recent establishment of the Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies at The Field Museum recognizes the growing importance of the region," he said.

This research is part of a collaborative study of Dr. Jörg Fröbisch (Department of Geology, Field Museum, Chicago), Dr. Kenneth D. Angielczyk (Department of Geology, Field Museum, Chicago), and Dr. Christian A. Sidor (Burke Museum and Department of Biology, University of Washington), which will be published online December 3, 2009 in Naturwissenschaften.

Funding for this research was provided through a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to J. Fröbisch and grants of the National Science Foundation to C. A. Sidor.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091202205621.htm


I've read how ancient civilizations have mapped Antarctica as being a snow-free land mass. It seems to me that these ancient maps might be proven to be real. The question which now arises is how did they map that land mass so accurately??

vesta111:

--- Quote from: Thor on December 03, 2009, 04:50:59 PM ---http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091202205621.htm


I've read how ancient civilizations have mapped Antarctica as being a snow-free land mass. It seems to me that these ancient maps might be proven to be real. The question which now arises is how did they map that land mass so accurately??

--- End quote ---

Go one step further, the Planes of Nesca [spell check is out, sorry.]

There are many maps that are suposed to be very old that show  the coast lines of coasts that at that time were unknown.

Today we find artifacts that may show that humans survived the ice age, lived much as the Escamo and the Lap Landers.

We need to think we are the apex of techology, we are the top of the line in human eveloution. We need to look to our accomplishments as an extension of the lives lived before us---but we still cannot explain how those 2,000 years  ago were able to build and grow their civilizations.  How could those before us have created things that we could not accomplish today.?

The only record besides the Bible for the past is the books from the Hindi that are very extreme.

We have no idea how life, inventions and lost knowledge was going on in other parts of the world.

A very short time ago, 600 years the Americas, both North and South. The world at that time was a mess of humans with high and low knowledge.  We found a way to barge in and change world history.

99% of humanity could not read or write, but they found ways to explore new worlds and draw their own conclusions as to things they found.

Their conclusions were built on their own knowledge of the world, same as when we today find an artifact, we can only judge it by our knowledge of today.

As things come to light today, when we find an artifact, be it map or grave site, we tend to translate the findings as we would see it,  and perhaps miss the origional use of that piece of history.

This is one of the fun things about living in the era of today. All the mysterys just wating to be solved, all the questions that may continue for another 2,000 years.

You know, this lost knowledge has for years facinated me---especially the Aunk.  Is it possible that that device worked in some way as a block and pully to build the pyrimids,??  The symbol of everlasting life could have come from the invention that helped build the pyrimids .

Spell check went out and I am to busy to recheck spelling sorry.

Chris_:

--- Quote from: Thor on December 03, 2009, 04:50:59 PM ---http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091202205621.htm


I've read how ancient civilizations have mapped Antarctica as being a snow-free land mass. It seems to me that these ancient maps might be proven to be real. The question which now arises is how did they map that land mass so accurately??

--- End quote ---

There are some Phoenician maps that appear to be copies of even earlier maps that not only show Antarctica as a snowfree landmass, but also show the Americas in similar detail.......

There is an obscure, but developing school of thought that a "great civilization" existed prior to 12,000 BCE, that was wiped out by some great natural cataclysm, however no definitive proof has emerged, except for the facts that civilizations such as the Egyptions, Incas, Mayans, ancient Chinese and others widely disbursed, share some common myths, as well as some commonality of architecture.

doc

Thor:

--- Quote from: TVDOC on December 04, 2009, 04:33:30 PM ---There are some Phoenician maps that appear to be copies of even earlier maps that not only show Antarctica as a snowfree landmass, but also show the Americas in similar detail.......

There is an obscure, but developing school of thought that a "great civilization" existed prior to 12,000 BCE, that was wiped out by some great natural cataclysm, however no definitive proof has emerged, except for the facts that civilizations such as the Egyptions, Incas, Mayans, ancient Chinese and others widely disbursed, share some common myths, as well as some commonality of architecture.

doc

--- End quote ---

I've maintained, for some time, that there once WAS an advanced civilization here on Earth, more advanced than we are today. Where they went to, who knows?? It might have been before the great flood. I don't think that the bible or the torah is accurate as far as establishing a timeline. The Zoroastrians wrote of a great flood long before the existence of the Bible or the Torah.

I also believe that carbon dating is not as exact as scientists would like to believe it is.

Of course, I also believe that Einstein wasn't completely correct in his theory that mass gets heavier as it approaches the speed of light and that the speed of light isn't a "speed limit". Similar to how scientists thought that the sound barrier couldn't be broken.

Chris_:

--- Quote from: Thor on December 04, 2009, 09:22:49 PM ---I've maintained, for some time, that there once WAS an advanced civilization here on Earth, more advanced than we are today. Where they went to, who knows?? It might have been before the great flood. I don't think that the bible or the Torah is accurate as far as establishing a timeline. The Zoroastrians wrote of a great flood long before the existence of the Bible or the Torah.


--- End quote ---

Well.....since both the Torah and the rest of the OT are basically oral histories that were passed down for generations until finally committed to writing around 800 BCE (if memory serves....I not a Bible historian), one must allow for a certain amount of error in the actual timeline.

Regarding the flood, I'm of the opinion that the flood spoken of by the ancients was not a global event, but one confined to the "known world" at that time (far too many distinct societies mention it in their histories).........there is some geological evidence that the level of the Mediterranean was much lower at one time (as was the Black Sea), and there was a geological "cofferdam" in the area of Gibraltar creating those levels.  Geologists speculate that an earthquake may have destroyed the landbridge between Spain and Africa, releasing a 400 foot wall of water from the Atlantic that innundated much of the landmass in the Middle East, and areas around the Med.....considering the distances and area involved, the Middle east would have seen an increase in water levels that was much slower (over a matter of weeks).......which is the "flood" described in the ancient writings.

As far as a true "global" innundation is concerned, I'm skeptical, merely due to the Law of Conservation of Matter......if it happened, one hell of a lot of water disappeared, which doesn't really compute.

doc

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