New Theory for the Ordovician Extinction?

Three University of Kansas professors will be prominently featured on an episode of the National Geogrphic Channel show Naked Science airing at 9 tonight.

Adrian Melott, professor of astronomy, Mikhail Medvedev assistant professor of astronomy and Bruce Lieberman, associate professor of geology, will explain their theory that a gamma ray burst caused a mass extinction at the end of the Ordovician period around 440 million years ago.

Melott said when the extinction occurred, the earth was primarily underwater. He theorizes a gamma ray burst, a concentrated beam of energy expelled from the collapse of a massive spinning star, hit the earth and destroyed significant parts of the atmosphere. He said the burst destroyed a third of the ozone in the atmosphere, which greatly increased the amount of ultra violet light. This increase in light would killed animals who lived in very shallow water, destroying about eighty percent of planetary life.

“If we were walking around we’d have lots of sunburn and skin cancer and things. It wouldn’t be safe to be out in the sun,” Melott said.