Deadliest Period in Earth's History was also the Stinkiest

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Tiny microbes belching toxic gas helped cause-and prolong-the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history, a new study suggests.

Generally, scientists believe Siberian volcanos spitting greenhouse gases primarily drove the mass extinction event about 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. The gases caused extreme warming, which in turn led 80% of all marine species, as well as many land species, to go extinct.

Until now, scientists could not explain exactly how the heat caused those deaths. A new UC Riverside-led study in Nature Geoscience shows that the heat accelerated microbes' metabolisms, creating deadly conditions.

"After oxygen in the ocean was used up to decompose organic material, microbes started to 'breathe' sulfate and produced hydrogen sulfide, a gas that smells like rotten eggs and is poisonous to animals," said UC Riverside Earth system modeler Dominik Hulse.

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