Supervolcano

[UnderseaLcpl]

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/0...xtinction.html

Feb. 4, 2009 -- An ancient killer is hiding in the remote forests of Siberia. Walled off from western eyes during the Soviet era and forgotten among the endless expanse of wilderness, scientists are starting to uncover the remnants of a supervolcano that rained Hell on Earth 250 million years ago and killed 90 percent of all life.

This popped up on Yahoo! today. Evidently, a supervolcano in Siberia caused the near-extinction of all life on earth 250 million years ago by causing rampant global warming and/or ozone destruction, and/or, a lot of atmospheric toxcicty.

In my (admittedly biased) opinion, this seems like a thinly veiled attempt to link carbon emissions to global warming, since all previous major volcano activity that I am aware of caused a decrease in average temperatures while active, but I'm no expert. I've also been unable to locate much corroborating evidence from bore-hole sample data or sedimentary evidence that clearly point to a certain climatological trend during the paleolithic era (in either direction).

Helpful links, discussions, and opinions are welcome. Also, if anyone has seen the PBS or BBC programs that covered these phenomena, I'd be grateful for any web sources where I could find them (internet is a bit slow right now, and I haven't the patience to explore the sites myself )