Such a catastrophe is known as the great Permian-Triassic extinction and it was much worse than the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. In this, 95% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates disappeared . Said in silver: life was about to disappear from Earth. And nobody knows why.
Many hypotheses have been put forward, such as an intense volcanism, a nearby supernova, environmental changes due to the formation of a supercontinent and, of course, the collision of an asteroid between 6 and 12 kilometers wide. In other words, a piece of rock bigger than Everest.
One possible proof that supports this hypothesis is that in rocks from Hungary, Japan and China, molecules called fullerenes , as well as traces of helium and argon, have been found trapped inside these rocks: substances that are easier to find in space than in space. our planet. In fact, fullerenes have been discovered in rocks associated with two well-known impacts: the Cretaceous-Tertiary and in the Sudbury Crater in Ontario, which is 1.8 billion years old.
And craters – or crater-like formations – with the appropriate age are not lacking: the Bedou structure , in the Australian northeast, the Wilkes Land crater in Antarctica or the Araguainha dome in the Matto Grosso, are some of the candidates. But there are scientists who do not believe that a catastrophe of such magnitude capable of almost eliminating life on Earth responds to a single cause, but to several: it is what some call, half seriously half jokingly, the Murder Model in the Orient Express, in honor of the novel by Agatha Christie. Why? Well for this you will have to read it (or watch the movie).
