Monday, June 3, 2013

Who Shot the Sheriff?

Mass extinctions are among the most intriguing events in earth history and their cause a matter of heated and passionate debate. An article in EOS by Keller et al. reports on a recent workshop at the Natural History Museum in London.

Since the seminal paper by Alvarez et al. on the nature of the K-T boundary it had always been the argument mainly between the proponents of the impact hypothesis vs. the flood volcanism hypothesis. And both sides had good arguments to support their cause. At this recent workshop 150 scientists from different disciplines got together to discuss the cause of Phaenerozoic mass-extinctions in a multi-disciplinary approach.

It will be interesting to read the proceedings from this workshop. In preparation, Keller et al. have published an extensive summary of their view on the subject in Geoscientist.

We are still looking for the smoking gun.