CHAPTER 2.7
SIBERIA & THE PERMIAN EXTINCTION
   
CHAPTER 2.7
SIBERIA & THE PERMIAN EXTINCTION


At this point, the only other major extinction that offers relatively easy clues to its "smoking gun" is the Permian Extinction.

The Permian Extinction is the largest of the major extinctions. It occurred approximately 250 MYA. The most generally accepted reason for this extinction (known as the "great dying") was the effects from massive and persistent volcanism in Siberia … volcanism that dwarfed the volcanism of the Deccan traps in India.

Let's take a look at the five characteristics of the expected "Smoking Gun" as they pertain to the Permian Extinction.

1. CRATER — There are reports of a crater of 300 miles in diameter beneath the ice shield of Eastern Antarctica. The crater is presumed to be in the neighborhood of 250 million years old. The location of the crater is approximately where it would need to be in order to have a huge antipodal hotspot at the location of the Siberian traps 250 MYA.

The age is approximately correct. The size of the crater is in keeping with the huge extinction event, the huge outpouring of flood basalt lava and the huge Siberian continent that was uplifted. 18,19

However, because the crater is located beneath miles of ice, no one has been able to physically verify the reports. Nevertheless, confidence is high based upon gravity fluctuation measured by NASA satellites. They found a "mascon" (a mass concentration of mantle material) that had risen up into the earth's crust.

A posting on "Ohio State Research" notes
"When the scientists overlaid their gravity image with airborne radar images of the ground beneath the ice, they found the mascon perfectly centered inside a circular ridge some 300 miles wide." 19 pg2

The posting goes on to say:
"'On the moon, you can look at craters and the mascons are still there,' (Ralph) von Frese said. 'But on earth it's unusual to find mascons, because the planet is geologically active. The interior eventually recovers and the mascon goes away.' He cited the very large and much older Vredefort crater in South Africa that must have once had a mascon, but no evidence of it can be seen now." 19 pg 2
Other evidence of a cosmic impact 250 MYA is reported in "Extraterrestrial Impacts":
"Very recently a research team led by Dr. Luann Becker has published that they have chemical evidence for a meteorite strike 252 millions years ago at the time of the Permian crisis. The evidence is based on complex carbon molecules called fullerenes which have cosmogenic isotopes of helium and argon inside their 'football like' structure. The fullerenes show an unusually high concentration at the time of the extinction in three boundary sections in Japan, China and Hungary." 20 pg 3
There are also heightened levels of iridium and shocked quartz at 250 MYA. 20 Both of these items are associated with cosmic impacts.

2. HOTSPOT — We have flood basalt evidence of the biggest hotspot currently known on earth … the Siberian traps. The Siberian traps are located approximately where they would be needed to originate in order to have been antipodal to the Antarctic crater 250 MYA. 21

3. BLOB WITH A TAIL — Our evidence is the shape of Siberia as its blob collides with Europe at the Urals, as well as impacting South Asia near China. The tail extends to the east all the way through the Bering straits into almost all of Alaska (remember that a continent includes its shelf, and in this case, that shelf includes the Bering Straits). The tail actually continues into part of the Rocky Mountains of the US. This huge antipodal continental uplift area is in keeping with the size of the huge 300 mile-in-diameter impact crater.

4. CONTINENTAL MOVEMENT - Standard models of plate tectonics show the Siberian plate moving in to collide with the European plate. I would argue that the newly uplifted Siberian continent also had a slight velocity to the south. Therefore, as it headed west, it moved increasingly more to the south due to the coriolis effect. This southward movement caused it to crash into China and the surrounding area as well as into Europe, building up both the north side of the Himalayan plateau as well as the Ural mountains. It is also interesting to note that this southward movement by the blob appears to have started a rift in the tail (at Lake Baikal) because the continental mass is too big to remain intact under rotational conditions. It is also possible that the leading edge of the Siberian blob was initially located beyond the North Pole, which would account for southerly movement. In any event, this uplifted continent was so huge and so long that not all of the pieces moved in exactly the same direction as it rotated and broke up during its journey.

5. TANDEM MOVEMENT — The hotspot that began in Alaska and the created the Aleutian Islands is the logical candidate for a follow-on antipodal hotspot that is moving in roughly the same direction as the blob with a tail. The flood basalt lava deposits in Southern Alaska circa 235 MYA that move in the direction of the Aleutians may be the link between the Siberian traps and the Aleutian island arc. 37 Even after 250 million years, the hotspot still has some fire left, as it feeds the volcanoes at the west end of the Aleutian island chain.
In my opinion, we have a relatively complete "smoking gun" for the Permian extinction 250 MYA. Although not as complete and definitive as the "smoking gun" for the End-Cretaceous extinction, it is still very convincing.


SIBERIAN MOVEMENT


Let's take a look at the movement of Siberia and how that movement relates to the Rocky Mountains and other North American features.

The impact crater location in Eastern Antarctica and the Wrangellia flood basalts (231 - 225 MYA, which would have been the first separate activity of the Siberian hotspot after falling behind the moving Siberian continent) in Alaska and Canada give us a reasonably good picture of where the Siberian continent started out. We can see from the final position of Siberia that the Siberian traps were on the east side of the continent when it was first formed.

The blob part of the continent had a significant south and western momentum that caused it to move to the west and then to the south.

This movement is corroborated in an unusual way by an article in the Journal of the Geological Society in 2007. Entitled "Siberian trap magmatism on the New Siberian islands" by Alexander B. Kuzmichev and Victoria L. Pease, this article presents evidence that islands near the Siberian traps are not geologically different from Siberia, itself.

In the course of the investigation, the authors found that the arctic basin in the Alaska/Siberia area showed a rotated terrane. Furthermore, the terrane rotated around a pivot point in extreme northeast Alaska. The rotation in the Siberian area was to the south. 81 pg 960

The authors were not looking to corroborate a model such as the one that I present. Nevertheless, their terrane conclusions do actually match the scenario that my model proposes. With the flood basalt lava located on the east side of the newly uplifted continent, we would expect movement to the west (see Chapter 2.3, Sidespin). Later, due to the Coriolis effect, we would expect movement to the south. A pivot point near northeast Alaska is right about where we would expect to find it.


THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS


The creation and movement of the Siberian continent had a significant impact on the western side of the North American continent. Siberia helped to create the Rocky Mountains in the US and Canada.

The creation of the Rocky Mountains, as well as the western Canadian mountains and the mountains in Alaska happened over a period of millions of years and involved several different aspects of the movement and breakup of the Siberian continent.

The Siberian continent was originally a very large continent. It was so big that it ended up breaking into several distinct pieces as it pivoted, turned and moved to the west and then to the south. The resulting plates from the creation of the Siberian continent are:
1. The western part of the North American plate (which includes Alaska and the eastern part of Siberia).

2. The eastern part of the Eurasian plate (which includes the rest of Siberia).

3. The middle tail piece pulled north and west along the Canadian Rockies.

4. The end of the Siberian tail, which broke off and was trapped between the San Andreas Fault and the high plains of the U.S.

TOO BIG TO BE STABLE


The original Siberian continent that was uplifted was so large that it was intrinsically unstable as it tried to move in one piece. If this huge continent had been moving on a truly flat surface, then it might have held together. However, it was moving on a curved surface, where the Coriolis effect gives a different direction of movement to each segment of this large object.

The magma that was located under each part of this huge, upraised continent was being pushed in different directions, due to the rotational nature of the energy at that point under the earth. In the case of a smaller, stubby continent (i.e. India), the rotational energy of the blob would take over and move the entire continent in that direction. In the case of a much larger continent, the coriolis effect would cause the continent to split apart into multiple tectonic plates.

It is also possible that the leading edge of the blob was initially located beyond the North Pole, accounting for its slight southward movement. This would mean that Old Australia was farther south, but that is certainly possible.

The result of these competing directional pressures was the eventual breakup of Siberia into either three or four plates:
1. UPPER BLOB - This part moved west and eventually south and became permanently affixed to Eurasia, as it crashed into the Ural Mountains and China.

2. LOWER BLOB - This part moved west but was also pushed north by the tail. The western edge (composed of oceanic crust) of the Eastern North American Continent eventually ran into this section and raised up the Canadian Rockies as it was subducted. This combined mass continued moving west. Eventually, the western pull of the Upper Blob caused the far northern part of the North American to stretch apart (a quick glance at a map of northern Canada and Greenland will show how this area is stretched out like a fan). Finally, the southern movement of the Upper Blob was too much for the structural integrity of this part of the Siberian continent … the Upper Blob ended up permanently affixed to Asia, while the Lower Blob remained part of the stretched-out North American plate.

3. MAIN TAIL - Meanwhile, the main part of the tail of the blob was moving in a northern direction with at least a bit of a western twist. This piece subducted the Eastern North American Plate in the Southern Canadian Rockies.

4. TAIL END - The tail end of the Siberian Continent followed the blob north and west. The tail subducted the oceanic western side of the Eastern North American Continent later on in Canada, forming the Canadian Rockies. The lower part of the tail broke off as it was trapped between the San Andreas remnant land and the western edge of Eastern North America, becoming the high plains and the American Rockies.

THE ROCKIES - A COMPLEX SYSTEM


One point in favor of examining the Rocky Mountains in North America is the fact that they have been studied a lot. And yet, the formation of the mountains in the western U.S. is so complex that not all answers are known. Answers to these questions are explored in detail in Chapter 2.5.


THE FOLLOW-ON HOTSPOT


The follow-on hotspot for the Siberian continent moved almost directly west from its original position at Wrangellia in Alaska, forming the Aleutian Islands. However, because the North American plate did not move in a consistent manner during the 230 million years since the hotspot separated from the Siberian basalt flows, the Aleutians formed an arc, rather than a straight line. The reasons for this changing movement and the shape of the arc are detailed in the next three paragraphs.

The initial result of the collision of the Siberian continent and the western side of the North American continent was a gradual movement of the Siberian part of the North American continent (Alaska) to the north, as the blob rotated, pulling up the lower part of the blob and bringing the tail along, until the tail broke off.

Because the Alaska area was moving north, the west-moving hotspot appeared to be moving south.

This all changed 65 MYA, when the Chicxulub impact pulled the North American continent to the south, causing the west-moving hotspot to appear to move north. 41pg960;42;43pg14