The Permian Extinction caused by the impact of a great asteroid at the antipodal point to the Siberian Traps, the resulting complex crater with two secondary rings, and origins and consequential distinctive native flora and fauna of New Zealand
By Jefferson W. Dessordi
2020
Revision 7 - May 15, 2020
Tarim crater update: February 13, 2021
I thank my father, mother and grandmother, who sacrificed themselves so I could have access to Natural History books that changed my life forever.
The knowledge I received when an infant gave me curiosity, motivation and persistence to search for answers to the great puzzles of nature.
Summary
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Carl Sagan
This study provides clear evidences that the Permian Extinction occurred 252 million years ago was caused by the impact of a large asteroid on the antipodal point to the lava spill in Siberia, which up today was considered as its unique cause.
It is important to observe that impacts themselves cause destruction and a huge number of casualties instantaneously, long before the weather factors often associated with impact events.
In the case of Chicxulub, at the end of the Cretaceous, the resulting crater located on the coast of Mexico has a diameter of only 180 kilometers...
So scientists discuss volcanic winter and global warming after the event to try to understand the mortality achieved, but they rarely discuss immediate phenomena during impact.
In the case of the extinction of the end of the Permian, we are talking about a crater with a diameter of 4,600 km... there is an evident disproportion that will be analyzed at the end of this presentation.
In the hours after the impact, most of life for thousands of kilometers around the crater had already disappeared — the CO2 levels, the volcanic winter and global warming were less significant for the extinction than the factors immediately associated to the bolide’s impact.
So scientists discuss volcanic winter and global warming after the event to try to understand the mortality achieved, but they rarely discuss immediate phenomena during impact.
In the case of the extinction of the end of the Permian, we are talking about a crater with a diameter of 4,600 km... there is an evident disproportion that will be analyzed at the end of this presentation.
In the hours after the impact, most of life for thousands of kilometers around the crater had already disappeared — the CO2 levels, the volcanic winter and global warming were less significant for the extinction than the factors immediately associated to the bolide’s impact.
These factors need to be taken into account to understand the true magnitude of this type of event, even more for the Permian Extinction:
The thermal energy released on impact swept across the hemisphere, an air blast hundreds of times more intense than the atmospheric pressure ran across the planet, the oceans were overheated and acidified, and megatsunamis circled the globe several times.
An earthquake of magnitude higher than 13.6 spanned the globe, and seismic waves focused themselves at the opposite point of the planet, causing the Earth's crust to break up and the underground magma to spread over Siberia.
This magma effusion remained active for several million years, and its only effect was to difficult the recovery of life after the cataclysm.
Few survivors endured the harsh weather after the worst had already occurred.
The resulting complex crater shows a diameter of approximately 1,500 kilometers and a secondary ring with 4,600 kilometers, and it is currently fragmented into four main parts, and the fragmentation occurred in 3 steps:
Images: Google Earth, Antarctica without ice, Nazca Plate (in Wikipedia)
All images are proportional with 4,600 km overlapping circles.
The small size difference is due to the cropping of the image.
• The fraction of West Antarctica, with its gigantic newly discovered volcanic province — remnant of the impact — and the crater’s eastern outer secondary ring that forms the 4,600 kilometer diameter arched range of the Transantarctic Hills;
• The fraction of the Nazca Plate, the first to move itself apart from West Antarctica, carrying with it the fraction of the Philippine Sea Plate/Mariana Plate that would eventually drift towards its current position on the coast of Asia;
• The fraction of the Philippine Sea Plate/Mariana Plate, which shows half of the central crater and its outer western secondary ring constituted at least by part of Japanese Archipelago, Taiwan Island, and the Philippine Archipelago, arranged in a 4,600 km diameter arc from the center of the Mariana Arc;
• The fraction of Zealandia, with its S-shaped secondary outer ring: the northern part deformed due to its collision with the Australian Plate drifting eastward, the central part of the outer secondary ring at an approximate diameter of 4,600 kilometers from Vanuatu volcanic arc (New Hebrides tectonic plate), and its southern part deformed due to the northwestward thrust imposed by the Pacific Plate.
The islands of New Zealand originated in the outer secondary ring of this fraction, and they were the last fraction that drifted apart from West Antarctica.
Only the North Island is still located approximately in that diameter — either the set of islands have rotated over their common axis, or the South Island has drifted from its original position.
• The fraction of Zealandia, with its S-shaped secondary outer ring: the northern part deformed due to its collision with the Australian Plate drifting eastward, the central part of the outer secondary ring at an approximate diameter of 4,600 kilometers from Vanuatu volcanic arc (New Hebrides tectonic plate), and its southern part deformed due to the northwestward thrust imposed by the Pacific Plate.
The islands of New Zealand originated in the outer secondary ring of this fraction, and they were the last fraction that drifted apart from West Antarctica.
Only the North Island is still located approximately in that diameter — either the set of islands have rotated over their common axis, or the South Island has drifted from its original position.
This origin for the islands of New Zealand explains the riddle of their exotic fauna not sharing reptiles, amphibians and mammals native from the Australian continent, from which they supposedly should have departed from in relatively recent times.
Check it on Google Earth:
The path taken by the halves of the crater that caused the end of the Permian extinction is evidenced by the underwater volcanic mountain ranges that cross the entire Pacific Ocean, similarly to the path taken by the proposed Rohe crater that started the extinction of the end of the Cretaceous (an impact prior to that of Chicxulub explained on other study).
Check it on Google Earth:
The path taken by the halves of the crater that caused the end of the Permian extinction is evidenced by the underwater volcanic mountain ranges that cross the entire Pacific Ocean, similarly to the path taken by the proposed Rohe crater that started the extinction of the end of the Cretaceous (an impact prior to that of Chicxulub explained on other study).
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The Permian Extinction that occurred about 252 million years ago was an event of extraordinary proportions:
96% of life in oceans and 70% of life on continents simply disappeared, radically altering the course of life's evolution on the planet.
Even trilobites, survivors from various previous extinctions, were wiped off from our planet.
Even trilobites, survivors from various previous extinctions, were wiped off from our planet.
Nothing similar to the Permian Extinction occurred before or after it in geological history; the only comparable event was the Cretaceous Extinction that eliminated 75% of aquatic life and a significant part of land life, including the iconic flying archosaurs and the non-avian dinosaurs.
The Permian crisis was much worse than all other extinctions; hitherto, proto-mammals dominated the Earth.
Image: Detail of Mauricio Anton's art, Permian animals, showing scutosaurus and inostrancevia. Complete image for sale at fineartamerica.com
Since then, our few surviving ancestors spent the next 186 million years hiding themselves from the gigantic feathered (or not?) efficient killing beasts that even today get to haunt and enchant us in books and movie franchises, until the Chicxulub impact changed the scenario one more time.
Since then, our few surviving ancestors spent the next 186 million years hiding themselves from the gigantic feathered (or not?) efficient killing beasts that even today get to haunt and enchant us in books and movie franchises, until the Chicxulub impact changed the scenario one more time.
What was the cause of the Permian Extinction?
A preliminary event — Emeishan's lava spill — occurred 265 million years ago, and greatly worsened the living conditions and even caused a low level of extinction.
But about 252 million years ago, an exceptional lava spill occurred in Siberia — the underneath magma was able to break through the planet’s crust and poured out along an equivalent extension to the entire continent of Australia.
This lava surge is pointed to as the ultimate and only cause of the Permian Extinction, and there is no doubt about its occurrence — the huge flow of black lava can be seen from space:
Image: Google Earth
Such lava spill supposedly was caused by one "magma pulse", a giant mantle plume that came up suddenly from the entrails of the Earth.
However, a convincing explanation for the cause of this pulse was missing.
It is not possible to accept that an oversized mantle plume suddenly appeared due to a mere convection event — convection is an extremely slow process even in lower viscous fluids.
Plumes arising due to convection are subtle and protracted processes to which life can adapt to, see the processes of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge formation and African Tectonic Plate splitting-up — we coexist with these events since hundreds of millions of years, and life keeps thriving very well, thanks.
A magma pulse as that occurred at the end of the Permian is an event of an extraordinary energy level — to understand it, it is necessary to admit that a powerful triggering event has occurred.
To make a crude analogy, a bomb needs a fuse to explode — a stable system does not change its condition without an external factor acting on it; processes that span by millions of years do not suddenly become explosive without a cause.
But there is a plausible cause capable of generating an event of such a magnitude, and the evidence is plainly visible and verifiable in our planet... Simply, no one had interpreted it until the moment.
The evidences allow us to deduce and confirm that the Permian Extinction was initially caused by the impact of one huge asteroid.
The major impact occurred at one point of the Proto-Pacific Ocean located at the South Polar region that today is occupied by the West part of the continent of Antarctica at a point exactly antipodal to the Siberian lava spills.
And the crater that was formed suffered a fracture in three parts that accompanied the Nazca and Pacific Plates drifting away, and today those fractions basically correspond to West Antarctica, Philippine Sea Plate/Mariana Plate and Zealandia Plate.
As consequence, several islands and archipelagos formed on the outer secondary ring of this complex crater.
And the best evidences are found in New Zealand:
The proposed Triassic Antarctic origins of its Flora and Fauna can explain the reasons for its uniqueness and peculiar evolutionary adaptations.
The proof of these assertions is shown in details along this presentation.
1. Introduction
1.1 Antipodal geological effects of large craters on Moon and Mercury
An impact resulting in a large lava spill due to the seismic waves focusing at the opposite point of a celestial body has precedents, and the best example is our Moon:
1.1.1 The Mare Orientale Crater, diameter of 930 km, is opposed to Mare Marginis, a lava effusion at the antipodal point that lays at ground for 358 km.
Images: MARE ORIENTALE Crater, 1967 Lunar Orbiter 4, and MARE MARGINIS lava spill, in Wikipedia
This impact occurred when the Moon still had a semi-fluid mantle beneath its crust, so the conditions and mechanics of the impact were closer to that of our own planet. The ratio between diameters of Mare Orientale Crater and Moon is 26%.
1.1.2 On planet Mercury, the Caloris Basin, diameter of 1,550 km and attributed to a 100 km impactor asteroid, is opposed to a chaotic terrain attributed to the antipodal focusing of seismic waves.
There is also evidence of planetary-scale volcanism associated with that impact. The ratio between diameters of Caloris Basin and Mercury is 32%.
1.1.3 On Earth, the location of the impact of the studied crater is located at the antipodal point to the Siberian lava spill that caused the Permian Extinction. The ratio of diameters of this crater to planet Earth is 39%.
Calculations about the minimum size for an impact event to cause seismic waves focused at the other side of our planet need to have craters with a minimum diameter of 1,000 km.[1]
With a crater almost 5 times this diameter, there is no doubt that the our impactor would be able to cause an antipodal lava spill with such magnitude as that of the Permian Extinction event.
1.2 Impactors capable of producing a crater such as this one
1.2.1 Impactors originating from our solar system
The proposed crater would be the largest one found in our solar system[2].
It is the only impact event of such a magnitude to occur in recent times, way after the Late Heavy Bombardment period[3].
According to the Earth Impact Effects Program by Robert Marcus, H. Jay Melosh, and Gareth Collins, London College & Purdue University, there are some possibilities for the impactor.
It could be:
A) A comet with a density[4] of 1,000 kg/m3 with an orbital velocity of 51 km/s and an approximate diameter of 640 km. This size is 6.4 times larger than the largest comet recorded.
B) A comet with a density of 1,000 kg/m3 with a maximum orbital speed of 72 km/s and an approximate diameter of 540 km. This size is 5.4 times larger than the largest comet ever recorded.
C) A metallic asteroid with a density of 8,000 kg/m3, orbital velocity of 24,6 km/s[5] and an approximate diameter of 380 km. This size is 3.4 times larger than the largest observed metal asteroid, 16 Psyche.
Alternative C is the most plausible one: the impactor could be a remnant of the core of a disintegrated planet or a planetesimal, eventually it could have been formed along with 16 Psyche.
For scale purposes, the size of the impactor would be equivalent to an area 25% larger than Portugal, or equal to New Zealand’s North Island or the US state of Pennsylvania.
There are currently dozens of known asteroids with a diameter of around 400 km, some being moons like Mimas, Nereida and Proteus, but none of them are fully metallic ones.
As there are still many celestial bodies yet to be identified, the possibility of the existence of large metallic asteroids like the proposed as the impactor cannot be ruled out.
1.2.2 Interstellar impactor hypothesis
The occurrence of the impact at approximately Earth’s South Pole indicates a trajectory practically perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic and, therefore, perpendicular to the preferential plane of the orbits of bodies gravitating in our solar system.
Comets may originate in regions outside the plane of the ecliptic, like the Oort Cloud, but their low density would require an object of unprecedented dimensions to impact the magnitude of that of the Permian Extinction.
Some factors call attention to a possible interstellar origin of this impactor:
• The trajectories of the only two interstellar objects observed so far do not coincide with the plane of the ecliptic;
• Interstellar comets have higher velocities than those observed for comets of local origin — therefore smaller objects, within the dimensions expected for comets, would have sufficient kinetic energy to cause impacts of greater magnitude;
• There is an abnormal distribution of impacts in the regions of the Moon's poles — its North and South poles show a much greater amount than the average impact of the visible and hidden faces of our satellite;
• There are two large craters on the Antarctic continent: the one studied in this work and the Wilkes Land Crater, and possibly others to be discovered under the ice sheet;
• There are several impact craters in the northern terrestrial hemisphere, two craters recently discovered in Greenland, as well as various evidences of impacts on the North American continent, particularly in Canada, addressed in other studies by the author.
The cratering of the lunar poles is surprising:
Images: Google Earth/Moon, North Pole and South Pole of our Moon
Such distribution is strong evidence of periodic bombardment with relative frequency.
A hypothesis that would explain these occurrences would be a swarm of asteroids/comets that intercept the orbit of our solar system every galactic year — just as the Earth's orbit passes through clouds of comet debris that cause meteor showers annually.
The galactic year, the period in which the Sun travels a complete orbit around the center of the Milky Way, is estimated to be between 230 and 250 million years old.
Since the birth of the Sun, 20.44 galactic years have passed, enough time to explain the bombardment accumulated in the polar regions of the Moon.
However, what could cause this preferential bombardment direction?
The only two interstellar objects observed so far would have the capacity to reach the vicinity of the Earth's North Pole during the path of entry into the system, or the South Pole during the path of exit.
See the diagram of the trajectory of interstellar object 1I/‘Oumuamua:
Image: 'Oumuamua orbit at perihelion.png; nagualdesign; Tomruen; 1I/‘OUMUAMUA in Wikipedia, from JPL Horizons, redrawn by nagualdesign and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Such a trajectory could reach our planet in the South Polar region during the exit trajectory, or the north polar region if the entry had occurred closer to the Earth's orbit.
But what could cause this flow of objects?
There is a recently discovered possibility:
The central black hole in our galaxy, Sagittarius-A, is more active than we imagined — a strong explosion has been recorded and dated 3.5 million years ago, and there is no reason to think it was the first or the last.[6]
Such gigantic eruptions on its polar axis, which is also the axis of our galaxy, could launch fragments of disintegrated objects in its vicinity along that axis.
These fragments would follow a trajectory under the action of gravity of the entire galaxy, returning in a plane perpendicular to the galactic in the region of the peripheral arms, and would remain in this cutting galactic orbit in relation to the plane of the Galactic Equator.
Our solar system is located in one of these peripheral arms and would intercept the trajectory of these fragments on several occasions throughout each galactic year.
If the hypothesis is correct, our Earth is found not only in the shooting gallery of the comets and asteroids of our own system, but also in the shooting gallery of our galaxy.
This galactic bombardment does not fit the hypothesis of the Intense Late Bombardment, attributed to the impacts of the remaining blocks from the formation of our solar system.
On the contrary, this bombardment is not tied to a date limitation because it is not tied to the process of formation of our solar system — and not even to that of our stellar neighbors.
These objects come from much further and at much higher speeds — greater kinetic energy allows smaller objects, in the tens of kilometers, to cause impacts as intense as objects of much larger size, which could apply to the impact of our study.
We may be surprised at any time by the arrival of large interstellar objects, with no time for a defensive reaction, just as we were surprised by the arrival of 1I/‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov.
Much larger and faster objects may be on the way, and if we do not yet have the resources to deflect comets and asteroids of a few kilometers, there will be no means of deflecting objects of tens or hundreds of kilometers, as were the impactors of Chicxulub and of this study.
1.3 Geological phenomena associated with impact events
1.3.1 Phenomena caused directly by the impact
A volcanic arc is formed at the rim region of large craters.
If there were no tectonics, the craters and their arcs would remain in their original circular shape for eternity, as evidenced by the Moon, Mercury, and Mars; nonetheless, the Earth presents tectonic movements deforming these arcs and crater rims.
An impact sufficiently intense to cause magmatic spills (crater diameter greater than 250 km)[7] is characterized by some factors:
1) Creation of a geological hotspot — except where the Earth's crust is sufficiently thick and rigid (Tarim Crater).[8]
The hotspot can contain a single main volcanic duct inside (case of Shiva Crater[9]), or several volcanic ducts depending on the size of the crater, as the case of Wegener Crater — large impacts can add several secondary ducts to its crater rim.
However, the most superficial layer containing the crater rim may detach itself and drift away from the impact location on the plate where it sits, while the hotspot (if it exists) remains fixed at the impact location.
2) Formation of the crater itself with circular rim; the terrain on its rim is friable, facilitating the passage of magma and allowing the creation of several ducts that form the circular volcanic arc.
The crater is a superficial phenomenon that is carried by the tectonic plate where it has been formed over, as evidenced by Shiva Crater in the Indian Ocean, Wegener Crater in the Pacific Ocean, and others that will be addressed in the study of the Cretaceous extinction by the author.
3) If the crust is thick enough to not generate a volcanic arc, karst lakes and cenotes will be created, such as:
· Cenotes associated with Chicxulub Crater;
· Karst lakes at Tibetan Plateau associated to Tarim Crater;
· Karst lakes from South Australia associated with the Wilkes Land crater in Antarctica.[10]
4) Large magnitude impact events able to generate craters larger than 250 km cause lava spills flowing directly from the crater. Only the exceptionally large Wegener impact event was able to cause also an antipodal magma effusion.
5) Creation of a volcanic chain due to the displacement of the tectonic plate over the impact hotspot; in general, at impact events, we find a hotspot at one end of the volcanic chain and an impact crater at the opposite end.
The hotspot may remain active for millions of years, signaling its presence by means of volcanic chains at the plate(s) crossing over it.
Examples:
· Reunion Island Hotspot — Chagos-Laccadiva seamount volcanic chain – Shiva Crater on Indian Plate
· Hawaii Hotspot — Hawaii Emperor seamount volcanic chain – Rohe Crater[11]
· Kerguelen Island Hotspot – Kerguelen oceanic plateau – Wilkes Land Crater in Antarctica
6) Two known impact events generated anomalies at great depths (250 km) such as underground tectonic microplates.
The examples of the Greater Adria and Tarim underground tectonic microplates will be commented in another segment.
But we need to emphasize that other underground tectonic microplates associated to impact craters may exist, but were not discovered yet.
All of the above cases are dealt with in detail in other studies by the author.
Continued on the next page
[1] At planetary scale, impacts even greater than "basin-scale", >1000 km events may be required to cause antipodal cratering and partial removal of crust (Marinova et al., 2011); Antipodal focusing of seismic waves due to large meteorite impacts on Earth, Geophysical Journal International 187(1):529-537 · October of 2011
[2] Borealis Basin located on Mars is not recognized by IAU as an impact crater.
[3] 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago
[4] Earth Impact Effects Program suggests a density of 1,000 kg/m3 for comets, despite the comets observed until now present a mean density around 600 kg/m3.
[5] Earth Impact Effects Program suggests a speed of 17 km/s for asteroids. The value of 25 km/s was measured for asteroid NEO 2019 OK, which passed about 100,000 km from Earth on July 25, 2019.
[6] Astronomy.com, The Milky Way's supermassive black hole erupted with a violent flare just a few million years ago, by Erika K. Carlson, October 10, 2019
[7] According to other studies by the author.
[8] Tarim Crater will be presented later in this study and it is discussed in detail on a specific study by the author.
[9] Shiva Crater is a geological structure on the coast of India proposed by geologist Sankar Chatterjee and colleagues from Texas University as being the result of an impact crater during the Cretaceous Extinction. It is presented in more detail in another study by the author.
[10] The Wilkes Land impact occurred when Antarctica and Australia continents were still joined in Gondwana; this is subject of another study by the author.
[11] Rohe Crater is a proposed crater associated to this seamount chain; this subject is detailed in another study by the author.
ATTENTION: Blog in reverse order. To continue reading, go to the post below ("Postagem mais antiga").
[11] Rohe Crater is a proposed crater associated to this seamount chain; this subject is detailed in another study by the author.
ATTENTION: Blog in reverse order. To continue reading, go to the post below ("Postagem mais antiga").
