Heated Coal Caused Jurassic Algae Growth |
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Written by spacetravel.org
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Monday, 30 May 2005 21:12 |
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Carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by the heating of coal deposits may have caused the massive growth of ocean algae about 183 million years ago, during the Jurassic period, according to Jennifer McElwain and her team at the Field Museum in Chicago. McElwain and her colleagues studied the carbon dioxide-absorbing stomata of fossil leaves. The fewer the stomata, the more readily carbon dioxide must have been available. The team discovered that there must have been excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the time.
The team then studied the pre-Jurassic coalfields in South Africa and the Transantarctic Mountains, and found that these coalfields are riddled with veins of volcanic rock which were deposited around the same time that carbon dioxide levels were increasing. McElwain believes that heat from molten rock pushing into the coal beds decomposed the coal. This would have unleashed vast amounts of methane, which, when oxidized, would have been converted to carbon dioxide. This would have triggered a large growth of algae.
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