Hello All, About a week ago I was walking around within the boundary between the Permian and Triassic ages. By within, I mean in a mine, that is mining metals deposited in a sedimentary layer that is taken as the boundary. The end of the Permian (is end of Paleozoic, start of Mesozoic) was a mass extinction more severe than the one at the end of the Mesozoic that wiped out the dinosaurs (and the ammonites, etc etc). We were with a local geologist. It was kind of cool walking around in this layer-with the blue and green minerals showing in the rock. We took samples for a geochemist who works where I work-she has published on the Permian-Triassic boundary. I talked to her on the phone this evening, describing the stratigraphy, and she told me about other Permian-Triassic boundary outcrops. Its really starting to sound like the metals in this mine are not a coincidence. I wonder what it would be to be some amphibian, when the forecast is for several years of darkness, raining liquid metal among other things that day....shaking from a M15 (or whatever) quake...
(the vagueness in the description is deliberate. Now that we and the local geologist have some time invested, we would like a chance to work up the results, if any)
Chris