At https://phys.org/news/2025-07-fossilized-oysters-key-mass-extinction.html … fossilised oysters. We have plenty of them in fields in my neck of the woods. They are known as the devil’s toenails – coloquially. However, this study skirts around what must never be mentioned in public – geological upheavals. Catastrophic events that created a geological puzzle. Here we have a reconstuction of PH levels in oceans – using fossilised oysters. Researchers have discovered a rapid acidification of the oceans due to a massive and sudden rise in atmospheric co2 – at an extinction event dated 201 million years ago.This is otherwise known as the Triassic-Jurassic boundary event – and it led to the death and fossilisation of a lot of marine life, such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, various fish, ammonites, and bivalves. Coral reefs disappeared leading to a ‘reef gap’ – a period when coral reefs were absent. It took hundreds of thousands of years for them to reappear in the geological record. This appears to come as a result of uniformitarian dating, once again, of sedimentary layers. The acidification of the oceans is attributed to co2. However, not to fossil fuels – but co2 released by volcanism. Is that an assumption on the part of mainstream?
The co2 was released by continental scale volcanic activity. Lots of tectonic activity and eruptions. This is timed at the early stage of the break up of the supercontinent Pangaea. Rifting it apart. The chemical fingerprint of the carbon came from solid earth, they claim. And it probably did. However, was the acidication wholly due to co2 and is another factor, left unmentioned, hiding out of sight of the researchers. A space rock, for example. Something had to cause all that volcanic activity. That is why it is left unsaid, we might suppose. The whole point is to play up the role of co2 in one of geology’s biggest mass extinction events, and claim a link with the disappearance of coral reefs as a result of sea level rise [brought on by all that devilish co2]. It smacks of a realignment of Earth’s geoid, involving a redistribution of the Earth’s ocean water – finding a new level. That could have been the result of a space rock impact – initiating, at the same time, the volcanism – and perhaps the ocean acidification. The length of time coral reefs were absent from their data is most likely over egged, as a result of uniformitarian timescales assigned to geological layers. Coral reefs would quickly have sought out the new ocean surface – by rapid growth. It depends on how long the acidification persisted. It could have been a fairly temporary affair. However, the object of the research, the funding and the peer review process included, was in support of the global warming lobby. It is a biased conclusion, you might say – but otherwise interesting as it illustrates the extent of damage a space rock strike might configure on the Earth and its occupants.