[meteorite-list] Fossils Offer Support for Meteor'sRoleinDinosaur Extinc...

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Hola Mark, List,
 
Nice link of "carbonized petrified wood" from Ecuador, thank you...however,  
it appears to me that the "carbonized" adjective in that particular URL refers 
 to trees that were dried under a bed of fine warm volcanic ash, according to 
 those authors, where some of the mineralization occuring in the 
petrification  process forming stable carbon minerials derived from the original organic 
carbon  in the organic matter.  It doesn't sound like they are claiming that  
the fine detail also shows evidence that the fossils were burned, in your use 
of  "charred" and "carbonized".  On the contrary the authors seem to  be 
agreeing with the point I made: That the temperature couldn't have been  too hot - 
or the detail would have been lost - they quote 150 C as the  maximum.  Wood 
doesn't burn at that temperature.
 
To try to bridge our gap, I'll agree that you could probably come up with  
several examples of petrified wood where arguments have been made alleging  
charring of the "burnt" variety.  There are a couple of orders of magnitude  more 
of biomass of plant material than animal, though.  The examples you  will 
probably dig up are from lava flows where several meters of inorganic  volcanic 
ash buries anerobically in near laboratory produced conditions, a  perfect 
insulating, thick disinfected layer of ash from which leaching of  volcanic 
minerials into the integral organic structures can grow minerals  in the orientations 
we can recognize as a fossil, long after the original mold  has vanished.
 
If we can agree that these events are specialized cases, and that the  
supposed KT impact was of quite a different variety scrambling all kinds of  
unsterilized, non-uniform, matter, much like a variable garbage heap, we  now have a 
different situation where I don't believe anyone has actually show  that burnt 
fossils - if that sort of original burnt product even existed - can  actually 
form under these circumstances.
 
My motivation to respond was that you are shooting down marine  organisms as 
indicators of global and regional climate change by refusing to  consider its 
implications on the fauna of the region.  In fact, it is the  best we have.  
I'll gladly give to you that it isn't "proof", and that  certain researchers in 
their enthusiasm think they can explain the entire world  with a hammer, or 
whatever tool they have become proficient and familiar  using.  But 
chronostratigraphy is a very serious and developed science  which provides indicators 
that a comprehensive extinction theory must be  consistent explaining as one of 
the first things it does - if great changes are  noticed.  You might attribute 
it to abrupt changes in nutrient availability  - well, perhaps, but the Forams 
are rather widespread across the world and when  correlations indicating 
water temperature are very consistent with many diverse  theories, I must admit I 
get amazed at the power of this sort climatic  analysis.
 
On the other hand, you set the bar quite high, perhaps in joking, it is not  
clear to me...You would demand a paleontologist show you burnt dinosaur bones 
to  back up his babblings derived from Forams before you would take him  
seriously.  I disagree.  Perhaps I am a bit ignorant on this, but I am  having 
great difficulty imagining how dino bones would get nicely burnt and then  
petrified with the upheaval of tsunamis, rocks and bb's, from the sky, storms,  
winds, maybe fires, etc...  It just sounds like a huge mess to me.  I  picked a 
tree as it would be the easiest in my opinion to conserve charring  marks if 
anything could.  I try to imagine how the bland tissue of a  dinosaur could be 
surgically removed and then bone charred, and that conserved  in this scenario by 
fossilization (especially considering the possible invasion  of corrosive 
salt water).
 
When we barbeque an animal, do we get burnt bones out of it?  With all  that 
mean around it?
 
Now given the 65,000,000 years that have elapsed, the relative uncommoness  
of macro-fossilization when not ocurring under perfect conditions, when  
sediments move, etc., the relative infrequent finds of dino bones, I think you  are 
asking for a standard of proof that is too tall an order, though it would be  
great if it could turn up.  That may be what is being hunted in the article  
on Cuba - which perhaps is the right distance from the alleged KT crater, to 
get  a partial burning...not to close, not too far...
 
Where I am going with all this is, while I don't disagree with your  
arguments against the chronostratigraphists, any other proof so far from the  boundary 
event(s) is equally or more likely more inconclusive than the ideas  gleaned 
from analysis of the Foramifera and the implications of global climate  change 
that they indicate.
 
65,000,000 years ago, with modern science everything seems a our  fingertips. 
 That feeling quickly vanishes when one goes out into the  field, the rubber 
(shoes) meet the road (outcrops)and has to deal with a few  ugly anachronistic 
fragments of petrified rocks.  Even the petrification  process is not too 
well understood for a given fossil...
 
That's why I give the paleontologists studying microfossil  stratigraphy 
their respect for the tools they offer and wonderful  information they have 
gleaned for us all.  But that isn't carte blanche,  and I agree that we need to look 
at all surviving angles.  For example,  before finding that charred dino 
bone, can you at least show me a 65,000,000  charred earth rock or meteorite from 
the event?  Not shocked quartz.   Why would that be so hard to do if wood is 
no problem?
 
Saludos, Doug
 
Mark Fe wrote:

>Hi Doug and List

>Actually, there are chared and  carbonized stumps within flows. Simple 
google 
>search turn this up:  
>http://www.internacional.edu.ec/publicaciones/arco_iris/001/english/magazine0
01b.htm
>A  piece of burned bone which had been carbonized would leave a distinct  
>trace fossil as opposed to a mineralized fossil.