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Published online 22 August 2003 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news030818-16
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Boiling seas linked to mass extinction
Methane belches may have catastrophic consequences.
A massive methane explosion frothing out of the world's oceans 250 million years ago caused the Earth's worst mass extinction, claims a US geologist.
Similar, smaller-scale events could have happened since, which might explain the Biblical flood, for example, suggests Gregory Ryskin of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois1.
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