Apocalypse: It can be and is a very real
thing-not just some 'crazy' belief that the 'Almighty' will strike us down. Our
solar system orbits around our galaxy once every 225 million years (the earth,
of course, goes along for the ride).
Over the last 225 million years,
our planet has been subjected to at least:
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| Extent of Glaciation (Ice Age) 18,000 Years Ago |
1 'nearby' supernova explosion
(gamma-radiating the planet)
9 episodes of volcanism (extreme
multiple, eruptions causing major terrestrial and climate change) and
2 large-scale impacts (comets,
asteroids).
That makes 12 (probably more)
extinction (ie apocalypse) events not including extreme
climate/temperature changes (ice-ages) which may be 'normal' events in the
history of our solar system as well as massive hiccups (solar flares/CME) from
our own sun (see posts: When the Sun Grows Angry and The Carrington Event).
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| Coronal Mass Ejection |
A supernova an explosion
of a star resulting in a massive burst of radiation. During the short
interval of weeks to months, a supernova can radiate as much energy as our
sun is expected to emit over its entire life span.
Radiation in the form of gamma rays from a
supernova would result in a chemical reaction in the our atmosphere,
depleting the ozone layer enough to expose the surface to harmful
radiation.
The Ordovician–Silurian extinction
event was the second-largest of the five major extinction
events in the history of our planet - over 60% of all life forms
disappeared. The extinction occurred 443.7 million years ago.
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| Supernova |
At the time, most complex
organisms lived in the sea, and around 100 marine families became extinct.
Some scientists suggest that these
extinctions could have been caused by a gamma ray burst originating from a
supernova within 6,000 light years of Earth (in a nearby arm of our
galaxy). A ten-second burst would have stripped the Earth's atmosphere of half
of its ozone almost immediately, exposing surface-dwelling organisms to
high levels of radiation.
 |
| The Deccan Traps |
The Deccan Traps are a series
of flood basalts (volcanic rock) in Northwestern Indian and the nearby Indian
Ocean.
They originally covered approximately 2
million km2 with a remaining volume of more than 1 million km3 and a
maximum thickness of over 2 km. There is evidence that much of this
material was erupted very close to the 'K-T boundary' (about 65 million years
ago).
The Siberian Traps The remains
of these volcanic eruptions testify to the greatest mass extinction in the
history of the earth where 95% of all marine species became extinct. The
Siberian Traps are an accumulation of flood basalts from one of the largest
volcanic events in the history of the world. What is left of this
volcanism today are the remaining flood basalt deposits which cover an area of
2.5 million km2, a volume of over 3 million km3. The eruption of this
magma coincides precisely with the mass extinction event called the 'End-Permian'
(about 245 million years ago).
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| The Siberian Traps |
The Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB)
was a period of intense bombardment of the inner Solar System by
asteroids/meteors that is thought to have occurred about 3.85 billion years
ago, when our solar system was only about 700 million years old (about 3.85
billion years ago). Most of the craters on the Moon were formed during this
brief but intense period of bombardment, with similar impacts on the Earth.
With on going geologic processes on our planet (the moon is relatively inactive
geologically) any such craters that formed then have mostly been erased.
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| Comet Impact |
About 65 million years ago, most
scientists agree, an impact (comet? asteroid?) occurred near today's Yucatan
Peninsula (the Chicxulub crater, eastern Mexico), setting off
earthquakes, tsunamis, fire storms and severe global climate change, ultimately
leading to the demise of the dinosaurs.
And now that human beings have advanced
technologically, we might see climate change, nuclear war/accidents, biological
weapons, etc adding a human touch to the history of 'the end of the world'.
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| The End of the Age of the Dinosaurs |
*Apocalypse: subject of research
for the novel The Tao
of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.
