Re: K-T Theories

[art@acc.com (Art Berggreen)]

>
>>the only problem i have with that argument, is the number of critters in the
>>leg.  to kill off enough phytoplankton really damage the ecosystem to the
>>extent your idea seems to require, you'd have to destroy 1000's
>>of species, whereas disease at a higher trophic level does not require
>>so many species deaths.
>
>>i am not arguing here for the disease hypothesis, merely examining the
>>relative numbers involved in the food pyramid.
>
>What I'm saying is that from the looks of the evidence that the
>phytoplankton was just about exterminated at the K/T boundary.  Even
>those lucky survivors who made it through did not have much of a
>population for a while.  This makes this a problem that reaches way
>beyond the food pyramid.  As I stated before I think there is a general
>lack of appreciation of how much of the photosynthetic biomass of the
>world is floating around in the ocean.  In my opinion every rain
>forrest could be expunged from the face of the earth (no, I'm not
>advocating this) and it would be a minor inconveinence.  But if you
>reduced the plankton to almost zero we'd all be gasping for breath in
>no time.  This is only just considering oxygen.  Look at the Cliffs of
>Dover or the Austin Chalk (both just about 100% nannofossil skelital
>material) All that calcium carbonate was made of billions of tons of
>carbon dioxide removed from the Cretaceous atmosphere daily.  As I
>stated before there are probably some other geochem cycles that are
>critically affected by the phytoplankton on a day to day basis. 
>Shutting this off over any period of time could have a major impact on
>the world wide ecosystem whatever the original cause of the shut off.

Ah, it becomes clear....

As a species of highly evolved dinosaur was developing their highly
unstable Iridium Moderated Fusion Reactor technology, they were
severely polluting the oceans.  Just as the pollution reached toxic
levels, they lost control of their reactors.

Sorry, couldn't resist. ;>}

Art