A scientist team lead by Geo-chemist Benjamin Gill were the first to discover that the reason for the extinction of ancient marine life was because of toxic waters near the coast. They were already pretty much sure that the oxygen levels in the ocean at that time which was anywhere from about 250-500million years ago. They decided to see if its possible that the sulfur level rose in the water and that was what caused it to be toxic for the marine life and begin to kill them off. They pretty much confirmed that the culprits for the the death of all the ancient marine life was for the high sulfur and low oxygen levels in the water but what they could not figure out was why the ocean suddenly changed and became anoxic.
At first they decided on what they believe was the reason for all the ancient marine animals going extinct millions of years ago and they tried to find proof for their theory by collecting rocks that could prove that the ocean had to be very low on oxygen for the rocks to have the high amount of sulfur and carbon that they did.
- The article is based on discovery science because of course this took place over 500 million years ago and they cant really test super accurately with water from today so they had to work with all the observations that they could and still had which in their case was the rocks.
- This article is beneficial to humans because it allows us to understand why these animals went extinct and possibly prevent it from happening to our currently marine life but you can also try to imagine what life would be like if those ancient marine animals were still around today.
Alexandra Witze, Ancient sea life faced toxic brew, Science News, January 29, 2011,Pg. 13
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