Mass Extinctions, Evolutionary Leaps, and the Virus-Information Connection

[Pierre]

Chapter 17: The Plague of Justinian​

Fatality and duration​

The first epidemics of the plague of Justinian started in 541 AD and ended in 549 AD. It afflicted mostly the Mediterranean area, Europe, and the Near East. During these eight years, it killed between 15 million and 100 million people depending of the estimates[1] [2], which represented between 25% and 60% of Europe's population of the time[3].

This was the death count only for the first outbreak. The plague of Justinian had 18 epidemics outbreaks[4] spread over more than two centuries. It finally abated in 767 AD.

© Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, after Stathakopoulos
The 18 waves of plague epidemics (541–767)​

Origin​

The years preceding and following the first outbreak of 541 AD were marked by major catastrophic events.

According to dendochronologist Mike Baillie, European oak tree data[5] reveal that a major cooling event happened from 536 AD to 545 AD. Actually this drastic cooling was not only recorded in Europe oak tree rings. Baillie’s conclusions were confirmed by dendrochronological studies conducted on Fennoscandian pine trees[6], Eastern Alps Pines[7], Mongolian tree rings[8], Argentinian tree rings[9], North American bristle-cone[10] and North American foxtail pines[11]:

© Larsen
Seven of the dendrochronology records showing a marked cooling over the 536-545 AD period​

As shown in the illustration above, the cooling episode was truly global. It was also exceptionally severe; the reduced rate of growth revealed by these tree rings corresponds to a global cooling[12] of up to 3 °C[13]. It makes this few years interval the coldest one of the past 2,000 years[14].

This cooling event is confirmed by several chroniclers and seems to have been caused by an extraordinary dust veil as reported by chroniclers of the time among which Procopius[15]:

[…] during this year a most dread portent took place. For the Sun gave forth its light without brightness […] and it seemed exceedingly like the Sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear[16]

This report is confirmed by Michael the Syrian[17]. The latter described the event as follows:

The Sun was dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months; each day it shone for about four hours, and still this light was only a feeble shadow[18]

Flavius Cassiodorus[19] wrote about conditions that he experienced 536 AD, which are quite similar what other chroniclers describe:

The Sun seems to have lost its wonted light, and appears of a bluish colour. We marvel to see no shadows of our bodies at noon, to feel the mighty vigour of the Sun's heat wasted into feebleness, and the phenomena which accompany an eclipse prolonged through almost a whole year. We have had a summer without heat. The crops have been chilled by north winds, [and] the rain is denied[20]

Besides severe cooling, ice cores reveal[21] a prominent sulfate spike ca. 536 AD. This sulfate spike is supposed to be due to a gigantic volcanic eruption[22]. But this hypothesis raises two problems. First, there’s no trace of a prominent eruption around these years, the two main candidates, Krakatao[23] and Ilopango[24] having been successively discarded. Second, a mega eruption should dramatically increase the atmospheric acidity and no ice core reveals such a spike:

A super-volcano would be expected to produce significant acidity in the atmosphere. This acidity would be recorded in the polar ice caps. Numerous ice-core studies have been carried out in both Greenland and Antarctica (see, for example, Clausen et al. 1997, Hammer et al. 1997). None of these has found evidence for a significant acid layer around 536 of the sort that would be caused by the eruption of a super-volcano.[25]

The other potential source for atmospheric sulfate is a cometary event[26]: direct impact(s) and/or overhead explosion(s). Actually, the sighting of a comet is mentioned explicitly by Procopius ca. 536 AD:

At that time also the comet appeared, at first about as long as a tall man, but later much larger. And the end of it was toward the west and its beginning toward the east, and it followed behind the sun itself. For the sun was in Capricorn and it was in Sagittarius. And some called it "the swordfish" because it was of goodly length and very sharp at the point, and others called it "the bearded star"; it was seen for more than forty days.[27]

Zacharia of Mitylene[28] make a similar observation:

In the eleventh year of Justinian [538AD], […] in the month of December a great and terrible comet appeared in the sky at evening-time for one hundred days. And that year the peace between the kingdoms was broken.[29]

Chinese chronicles from 540 AD[30] seems to confirm what was observed in the West:

Dragons [comets] fought in the pond of the K'uh o. They went westward....In the places they passed, all the trees were broken

The finding of nickel-rich particles and iron cosmic spherules tend to confirm this chroniclers’ observation:

We found Ni-rich particles and I-type (Fe-oxide) cosmic spherules […] dated by us to between 533 and 540 A.D.[31]

Notice that nickel is one the most reliable meteoritic signatures. While nickel is extremely rare in the Earth (0.0084%[32]), it’s abundant in meteorites which contain up to 30%[33] of nickel. Actually, high nickel content is such a sure indication that a material is meteoritic that it is used to discriminate non-meteoritic material from meteoritic material:

If the metal contains <4% nickel, then the metal chunk or rock is not a meteorite.[34]

The analysis of ice cores between 533 and 540 AD also revealed an unexpected high concentration of extraterrestrial dust:

[…] we instead found surprisingly large abundances and sizes of inferred extraterrestrial particles within a restricted stratigraphic interval. These results could mean that the time between A.D. 533 and 540 had an unusually high deposition rate of extraterrestrial particles.[35]

In addition to the iron spherules, the GISP2[36] ice core for ca. 536 AD revealed the presence of silicate spherules[37], which are the byproducts of impact events[38]:

© Sutlle
Sectioned BEI images of silicate cosmic spherules​

To recap, the absence of substantial volcanic eruption and accompanying acidity spike for the period 533-540 AD tends to discard the only-volcano hypothesis. The above doesn’t mean that volcanic eruptions were not one of the contributors[41] but it was probably not the main contributor and, as shown in our previous book[42], cometary activity can cause volcanic eruptions anyway.

Meanwhile, the high concentration of nickel-rich particles, iron cosmic spherules, silicate spherules and extraterrestrial dust found in the ca. 536 AD geological records strongly suggest that a cometary encounter was the main cause of the dust veil and the ensuing global cooling ca. 536 AD.

If one zooms in the five years from 536 to 540 AD, the multiplicity of comet sightings in the years 536-540 AD (in particular, Procopius in 536 AD, Zacharia of Mitylene in 538 AD, Chinese chronicles in 540 AD) plus the worsening in the drop temperature record by dendrochronology[39] (cooling in 536 AD that worsen 538 AD and that worsen even more in 540 AD) plus the detection of the cometary material in ice cores (notably in 536, 538 and 541 AD) suggests that there was not one but, at least three, closely interspersed major cometary bombardments and/or overhead explosions in this five years span[40]:

© Doherty
Cometary Sightings and Cometary Material in ice Core​

The few years or months between the cometary events (536, 538, 540 AD) and the first known outbreak of the plague of Justinian (ca. 541 AD) is consistent with the delay of transport of comet-borne viruses from the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface. Indeed, virus can take up to a few years to fall through the atmosphere before reaching the surface of our planet:

The smaller sub-micron sized particles and any microbes and viral particles attached to them, do not burn up. Instead, they fall upon the upper atmosphere (the mesophere and stratosphere), and then slowly drift down and upon the air currents, sometimes staying aloft for years, crisscrossing the planet, gently falling downward, until finally making a soft landing on whatever is beneath them, be it ocean, river, animal, plant, or human.[43]

When the virus finally reaches the ground, it has yet to find suitable human hosts. Once it’s done, these hosts have to be in contact with a large enough and susceptible enough population to spread and generate a noticeable-enough epidemics. Only then chroniclers, if located in the right region, can write down the “beginning” of the plague.

All the above suggests that the plague of Justinian was probably caused by a comet-borne virus. These cometary events also triggered the global cooling that preceded the first epidemic outbreak.

Maybe, that’s why, Venerable Bede, the most erudite individual of these chaotic times considered comets as the cause of the plague, including the Plague of Justinian, which he was contemporary to, described comets as:

Stars with flames like hair. They are born suddenly, portending a change of royal power or plague or wars or winds or heat.[44]

---

[1] Stathakopoulos, Dionysios (2018) "Plague, Justinianic (Early Medieval Pandemic)" in The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, Oxford University Press
[2] Arrizabalaga, Jon (2010) "plague and epidemics" in The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Oxford University Press
[3] Mordechai, Lee et al. (2019) "The Justinianic Plague: An inconsequential pandemic?" PNAS 116 (51): 25546
[4] Mordechai, 2019
[5] Baillie, M. (1994) “Dendrochronology raises questions about the nature of the AD 536 dust-veil event“ The Holocene, vol. 4, Pp. 212-217
[6] Briffa, K. et al. (1990) “A 1,400-year tree-ring record of summer temperatures in Fennoscandia” Nature 346, 434–439
[7] Nicolussi, K. et al. (2005) “Holocene tree‐line variability in the Kauner Valley, central eastern Alps, indicated by dendrochronological analysis of living trees and subfossil logs”, Vegetation Hist. Archaeobot., 14, 221–234
[8] D’arrigo, R. et al. (2001) “1738 years of Mongolian temperature variability inferred from a tree-ring width chronology of Siberian pine” Geophysical Research Letters, 28, 543-546
[9] Baillie, M. (1999) “Exodus to Arthur: Catastrophic Encounters with Comets” B.T. Batsford
[10] Lamarche, VC Jr. (1974) “Paleoclimatic Inferences from Long Tree-Ring Records: Intersite comparison shows climatic anomalies that may be linked to features of the general circulation” Science 183(4129):1043-8
[11] Scuderi, L. (1990) “Tree-Ring Evidence for Climatically Effective Volcanic Eruptions” Quaternary Research, 34(1), 67-85.
[12] Briffa, K., et al. (1990) “A 1,400-year tree-ring record of summer temperatures in Fennoscandia” Nature 346, 434–439
[13] 1.7F
[14] Abbott, D. H. et al. (2008) "Magnetite and Silicate Spherules from the GISP2 Core at the 536 A.D. Horizon" AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts 41: 41B–1454
[15] (ca. 500 – 565 AD) prominent Greek scholar
[16] Dewing, B. H. (1916) “History of the Wars” Harvard University Press
[17] (ca. 1126 – 1199 AD) author of the largest medieval Chronicle
[18] Chabot, J B. (1901) ‘’Chronique de Michel le Syrien’’ Ernest Leroux
[19] (ca. 485 – 585 AD) Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity
[20] Cassiodorus (2019) “The Variae” University of California Press
[21] Larsen, L. B.et al. (2008) "New ice core evidence for a volcanic cause of the A.D. 536 dust veil" Geophys. Res. Lett., 35
[22] We are going to see in chapter 19 that Vesuvius probably erupted ca. 536 AD but it doesn’t account for the whole sulfate spike
[23] Keys, David (2000) “Catastrophe: an investigation into the origins of the modern world” Ballantine Pub
[24] Victoria C. Smith et al. (2020) "The magnitude and impact of the 431 CE Tierra Blanca Joven eruption of Ilopango, El Salvador" PNAS
[25] Rigby, Emma et al. (2004) “A comet impact in AD 536?” Astronomy & Geophysics. 45. 1.23 - 1.26. 10.1046
[26] Lunar and Planetary Institute Editors (2021) “Impact Induced perturbations of Atmosheric Sulfur” Lunar and Planetary Institute
[27] Procopius (2020) “History of the Wars” Independently Published
[28] (ca. 465 – 536 AD) A bishop and ecclesiastical historian
[29] Zachariah of Mitylene (1899) “The Syriac Chronicle” Methuen & Co
[30] Greg Bryant (1999) “The Dark Ages: Were They Darker Than We Imagined?” Universe
[31] Abbott, D. et al. (2014). “What Caused Terrestrial Dust Loading and Climate Downturns Between 533 and 540 A.D.?”. Special Paper of the Geological Society of America. 505. 421-427. 10.1130/2014.2505(23).
[32] CRC Editors (2016). “Abundance Of Elements In The Earth’s Crust And In The Sea” CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 97th edition p. 14-17
[33] Randy L. Korotev. (2021). “Some Meteorite Information: Metal, Iron, & Nickel”. Washington University in St. Louis
[34] Korotev, 2021.
[35] Abbott, D. et al. (2014). “What Caused Terrestrial Dust Loading and Climate Downturns Between 533 and 540 A.D.?” Special Paper of the Geological Society of America 505. 421-427. 10.1130/2014.2505(23)
[36] Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2
[37] Abbott, D.H. et al. (2008) “Magnetite and Silicate Spherules from the GISP2 Core at the 536 A.D. Horizon” AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
[38] Drabon N. (2014) “Spherules” In: Amils, R. et al. ‘’Encyclopedia of Astrobiology’’. Springer
[39] See Larsen dendrochronology chart in the beginning in this chapter
[40] Dallas Abbott Lamont - Doherty (2010) “Did a Conflagration of Comets Contribute Dust to the Earth and Cause Climate Downturns between 532 and 542 A.D.?” Earth Observatory of Columbia University
[41] Larsen, L. et al. (2008) “New ice core evidence for a volcanic cause of the A.D. 536 dust veil” Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L04708
[42] Lescaudron, Pierre (2021) ‘’Cometary Encounters’’ Red Pill Press, Chapter “Correlation between Cometary Activity and Volcanic Activity”
[43] J. Wickramasingh et al. (2010) “Comets and the Origin of Life”. World Scientific Publishing Co
[44] Leneghan F. (2020) “Comets, omens and fear: understanding plague in the Middle Ages”. University of Oxford

 

[Pierre]

Here is the pdf for chapter 17.

 

[Channa]

Once again, a big thank you
PDF Ch 1-17
Channa

 

[PERLOU]

MERCI PIERRE...

MERCI CHANNA...

 

[Benjamin]

A few more typo's.

Chapter 14:

An even stunning example virus-host synergy comes from parasitic wasps have domesticated viruses that cannot replicate outside the wasps.

- An even more stunning of virus-host synergy... parasitic wasps that/who have... outside their bodies(?).

For reference, untreated inhalation anthrax has a fatality rate of 80% or higher[11].

-...inhalation of anthrax...

Although the list of benefit provided by exogenous viruses to their hosts is substantial, it is nothing compared to ERVs.

-...benefits...

In addition, the common belief that ERVs are non-coding is generally true, but yet there are exceptions for example HERV-K[22] is known to code HDTV[23].

-...HTDV. (Did you want to take a break at this point?)

Maybe the fundamental role played by ERVs in morphogenesis as emphasized in the quote above explains why viruses played also a pivotal role in what can be consider as the greatest evolutionary leap

-...considered...

ERVs are involved in a multitude of fundamental functions amongst which, altering and promoting amylase gene, expressing host genes or to facilitating splicing events:

_...amongst which include... genes...
(also)
- remove "to", (or) ... or to facilitate spicing events:

[1] The exact number of potentially pathogenic virus in human in exactly 219 as of 2012. Notice also that, on average, 3 to 4 potentially pathogenic viruses in human are discovered every year. See:

-...pathogenic viruses in humans is exactly 219 as of 2012. ...humans... (footnotes)

[12] Roossinck, M.J. (2015) “Beneficial viruses for crops” Molecular Plant Pathology 16: 331-333.

- I'm probably wrong but just to check, I found the [12] quote comes from the introduction section of an article that seems to be actually titled: "A new look at plant viruses and their potential beneficial roles in crops" (Link to article). The "Beneficial Viruses in Crops" is the title of the first section after the introduction.

[16] See chapter ‘’The Enigma of Speciation’’

-...Chapter 9...

Chapter 15:

How did reach we a paradigm so orthogonal to truth?

-...we reach...

Pasteur’s work was heavily promoted by the Flexner Report, funded John D. Rockefeller

-...funded by John...

while Carnegie accumulated his own by operating illegal steel monopoly[18].

-...monopolies.

The guidelines brought up by Flexner report were applied in the North America and led to death of “alternative medicines”

-...by the Flexner... to the death...

It propelled de facto allopathic medicine[24] as the only therapy and pharmaceutical companies as the sole supplier of medicine.

-...suppliers...

Actually, we would have never appeared since we're made of virus, or more accurately, viruses made us.

-...viruses...

Count of viruses in healthy carriers suggest that Béchamp was right,

- The count... (or) The number...

Given their pervasiveness[35] inside and outside our bodies, it would derisory to try to control

-...would be derisory...

Bechamp’s terrain theory was amalgamated with the no-virus theory, throwing the baby (terrain) with the bathwater (no-virus theory).

-...throwing the baby (terrain) out with the bathwater (no-virus theory).
(or)
-...throwing the baby (terrain) with the bathwater (no-virus theory) out.

In the same vein, Pasteur denied that it was agents smaller than bacteria (viruses) that cause rabies although the use of bacterial filter excluded the bacteria hypothesis[49].

-...caused(?) ...of a bacterial filter... (or)...of bacterial filters...

Viruses contribute to the removal of obsolete species during comet-induced mass extinctions and but they also contribute to the apparition

-...and but... (which one?)

Chapter 16:

Since the dawn of history comets have been associated with plague and diseases. A series of books called the “Mawangdui Silk” was compiled in 300 BC but it list events as far back as 1,500 BC

- Needs a comma behind "history".
(also)
-...lists...

One of the most learned person of his epoch, Venerable Bede[4] described comets in these terms:

-...persons...

A few centuries later, Maimonides[6] established a similar association between plague and comets:

-...plagues...

We find the same association between comets and plagues six centuries later in the work of the Noah Webster

- Delete "the".

Knowing that cometary activity is major cause of volcanism

-...is a/the major...

In the following excerpt, Webster widens the scope of its association to include meteors with comets as causative agents and a series of infectious disease as consequences:

-...diseases...

Among the diseases monitored by Webster is the Influenza

-...was(?)... (The virus still exists but Webster does not. Since the sentence is about Webster, it feels like it should be "was". But, idk.

Despite the on-going revision of history to present an uniformitarian paradigm,

-...a...

[11] Webster, 1799 p.10

- Needs a comma after 1799.


This is great stuff! Chapter 15 made me giggle with the sliminess of it all. I had no idea about Terrain theory. My view of viruses has completely changed!

 

[Benjamin]

Missed one.

The guidelines brought up by Flexner report were applied in the North America and led to death of “alternative medicines"

-...in North America... (Delete "the".)

 

[gottathink]

I was interested to see what is currently the main stream theory about the origins of the Justinian plague. It is referred to as a bubonic plague caused by bacterial infection spread by fleas. This theory is supported by DNA sequencing on archeological remains.

@Pierre, do you cover this in future chapters? Is it the fleas that contracted the virus and then they developed a susceptibility to bacterial infections to pass it on to humans?

How does this all fit together? Or have other scientists’ competing theories that do not consider a viral origin for the Justinian plague?

 

[Pierre]

I was interested to see what is currently the main stream theory about the origins of the Justinian plague. It is referred to as a bubonic plague caused by bacterial infection spread by fleas. This theory is supported by DNA sequencing on archeological remains.

@Pierre, do you cover this in future chapters? Is it the fleas that contracted the virus and then they developed a susceptibility to bacterial infections to pass it on to humans?

It is a covered in the next installment, chapter 18: "The Black Death" to be released, hopefully, in a few days. Bubonic plague doesn't fit at all with the mortality, the geographic scope, the speed exhibited by the Black Death of the plague of Justinian.

Indeed, teeth pulp extracted from the corpses dating from the plague of Justinian reveal DNA sequence of bubonic plague but it doesn't that all the victims died of bubonic plague.

In addition, carriers of the bubonic plague bacterium didn't necessarily die of the bubonic plague like, today, dead with the SARS-CoV-19 doesn't necessarily mean dead from SARS-CoV-19.

 

[Voyageur]

Thanks for the chapter:

Notice that nickel is one the most reliable meteoritic signatures. While nickel is extremely rare in the Earth (0.0084%[32]), it’s abundant in meteorites which contain up to 30%[33] of nickel. Actually, high nickel content is such a sure indication that a material is meteoritic that it is used to discriminate non-meteoritic material from meteoritic material:

If the metal contains <4% nickel, then the metal chunk or rock is not a meteorite.[34]

And speaking of Nickel, it was a hot session topic in 1999, and it comes in with other elements, such as cobalt (electrical and magnetic):

Q: (L) You said that the primary composition of this comet is nickel?

A: No, we said “nickel?”

Q: (L) What does ‘nickel’ mean? (A) It’s a shiny metal. (L) A coin, a five-cent piece …

A: What does molten nickel look like against the backdrop of space?

Q: (A) It would look like silver … (L) Would it have a color? (A) I don’t think so.

A: Does it conduct electricity? Is it magnetic?

Q: (A) Yes, it can conduct, but it’s not magnetic. Why ‘molten?’

A: What about the “tail” of such an object coming into contact with the ionosphere?

Q: (L) Oh. I think I get it. The Nostradamus thing about a great comet’s tail or something … let me look it up:

After great trouble for humanity, a greater one is prepared
The Great Mover renews the ages:
Rain, blood, milk, famine, steel and plague,
In the heavens fire seen, a long spark running.

This one is supposed to refer to something that occurs at the turn of the Millennium … Is this what we are getting at here? Something that will look like a ‘long spark running’ which then comes in contact with the ionosphere which may exchange potentials with the earth by virtue of this conducting, molten nickel tail? Yes????? Is that good?

A: Ask Arkadiusz.

Q: (L) Well, honey … am I on to something here? (A) The point is that this comet is in space. Space is rather cold, so the question is: what would make nickel molten? (L) Well, it will be close to the sun! That will heat it up! (A) This particular comet is not going to come close enough to the sun to melt it! (L) Well then, how can the nickel be molten???

A: What about flares?

Q: (L) That’s it! A bodacious solar flare! And, combined with the bodacious solar flare is a change of trajectory because of its accumulation of matter … so that it is closer to the sun … (A) But it is not coming close enough to the sun to be caught in a solar flare!

A: Is nickel magnetic?

Q: (L) No. What does it mean to this subject that a nickel is not magnetic?

A: Does nickel have a companion?

Q: (A) Well, when we say a ‘companion,’ it means another metal in the same family in the Mendeleev Table. I believe that cobalt and nickel are in the same family, but I will have to check …

A: And cobalt is invisible in the good old vacuum of space, but not nickel!

Q: (L) Does that mean it will attract cobalt?

A: No, cobalt will attract.

Q: (L) The cobalt will attract flares … electromagnetic phenomena …

A: Et al.

Q: (L) I see.

A: Now, you need to know the composition of this comet … And any other closely following same. We have alluded to the increased cometary activity before. Oort, and that which cyclically disturbs it.

Q: (L) I just want to know one thing … are any of these comets gonna hit the earth?

A: Someday, certainly. As have before.

There is an older SOTT.net article titled the Nickel Pickle... Good read, too:

Carrying on with your paper, Pierre:

"This cooling event is confirmed by several chroniclers and seems to have been caused by an extraordinary dust veil as reported by chroniclers of the time among which Procopius[15]:

[…] during this year a most dread portent took place. For the Sun gave forth its light without brightness […] and it seemed exceedingly like the Sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear[16]

This report is confirmed by Michael the Syrian[17]. The latter described the event as follows:

The Sun was dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months; each day it shone for about four hours, and still this light was only a feeble shadow[18]

{the "four hour" part was interesting, and wonder why and at what time of day, almost like how the sun might appear from the vantage point of the arctic or antarctic approaching the winter or spring seasons - sun rising in a lower or higher latitude for short periods}

Flavius Cassiodorus[19] wrote about conditions that he experienced 536 AD, which are quite similar what other chroniclers describe:

The Sun seems to have lost its wonted light, and appears of a bluish colour. We marvel to see no shadows of our bodies at noon, to feel the mighty vigour of the Sun's heat wasted into feebleness, and the phenomena which accompany an eclipse prolonged through almost a whole year. We have had a summer without heat. The crops have been chilled by north winds, [and] the rain is denied[20]

{this blue sounds something like the Blue hour, yet Cassiodorus is talking about the sun's light. This then sounds like a martian blue:
"On Mars, the reverse happens. The atmosphere doesn't scatter much light because there isn't much atmosphere to be had. What atmosphere there is has picked up a lot of dust, and that flying dust scatters light. Because it's a great deal larger than the particles of air, it scatters longer wavelengths of light, and so red is filtered out instead of blue."}

Besides severe cooling, ice cores reveal[21] a prominent sulfate spike ca. 536 AD. This sulfate spike is supposed to be due to a gigantic volcanic eruption[22]. But this hypothesis raises two problems. First, there’s no trace of a prominent eruption around these years, the two main candidates, Krakatao[23] and Ilopango[24] having been successively discarded. Second, a mega eruption should dramatically increase the atmospheric acidity and no ice core reveals such a spike:

A super-volcano would be expected to produce significant acidity in the atmosphere. This acidity would be recorded in the polar ice caps. Numerous ice-core studies have been carried out in both Greenland and Antarctica (see, for example, Clausen et al. 1997, Hammer et al. 1997). None of these has found evidence for a significant acid layer around 536 of the sort that would be caused by the eruption of a super-volcano.[25]

The other potential source for atmospheric sulfate is a cometary event[26]: direct impact(s) and/or overhead explosion(s). Actually, the sighting of a comet is mentioned explicitly by Procopius ca. 536 AD:

At that time also the comet appeared, at first about as long as a tall man, but later much larger. And the end of it was toward the west and its beginning toward the east, and it followed behind the sun itself. For the sun was in Capricorn and it was in Sagittarius. And some called it "the swordfish" because it was of goodly length and very sharp at the point, and others called it "the bearded star"; it was seen for more than forty days.[27]

Zacharia of Mitylene[28] make a similar observation:

In the eleventh year of Justinian [538AD], […] in the month of December a great and terrible comet appeared in the sky at evening-time for one hundred days. And that year the peace between the kingdoms was broken.[29]

{one might imagine - desperation, migration, lack of food etc.}

Chinese chronicles from 540 AD[30] seems to confirm what was observed in the West:

Dragons [comets] fought in the pond of the K'uh o. They went westward....In the places they passed, all the trees were broken

{sure sounds like atmospheric explosions - Tunguska style}

The finding of nickel-rich particles and iron cosmic spherules tend to confirm this chroniclers’ observation:

We found Ni-rich particles and I-type (Fe-oxide) cosmic spherules […] dated by us to between 533 and 540 A.D.[31]

{the nickel composition (with perhaps multiple cometary bodies at the time) would appear green if recalled - see sample photo of cosmic spherules}


Again, thanks so much, enjoying each chapter.

 

[Pierre]

Interesting comments Voyageur and I forgot that particular session that is relevant with the topic on hand. The Cs revealed one mechanism by which comets trigger and channel solar flares!

 

[Altair]

like Pierre Louis Maupertius

-> Maupertuis. See Wiki.

Darwinism is built on two foundations: random mutations effecting small changes. Both these foundations are falsified by facts. About randomness, here are the probabilities that random mutations led to various life forms in 5 billion years of random evolution:

Thus in 5.109 years the probability of random synthesis of the about 103 enzymes of the simplest cell was evaluated to ~ 10-40,000; and the probability of ~ 10-24,000,000 for the advent of man[14]

in 5.109 years -> in 5.109 million years?

 

[Altair]

[21] See previous Chapter “The Cambrian Life Explosion”

The previous chapter is titled "Other Life Explosions".

 

[Pierre]

@Pierre From chapter 8:


-> Britannica



-> in terms of



-> Mya.

Done in the source file

 

[Pierre]

I know that some of the errors have been corrected already but I found some other minor ones. I hope I'm not going over-the-top with these. I'm working from the pdfs and then finding them in the posts:

Introduction:


- Where is the template...
- ...it must be something...

- ...it is a/the combination...
- These are the main ideas...

- But one thing is sure... (or) But one thing is for sure...

- ...you have an...
- ...content of this book...
- ...without further ado... (or are you saying: with further content due?)

Chapter 1:


- In fact, it's a bit more complicated...

- This error is not noticeable in the post version, but in the pdf "collapse" is on one line and the like number is on the next.

- Colloquially called sea shells. (this is in the footnotes)

Chapter 2:


- Not noticeable in the post version, but the pdf might need a comma between the link numbers.

- The first 'of' should be removed in the caption under the first image.

- ...build up of polar caps and snowfalls.

- It seem that the chain of events is as follows:

- ...submarine landslides... documented effects...

- Needs a comma behind "Permian-Triassic extinction".

- ...seems...

- The "and' might not need to be there.
- ...take...

- Does the second hyphen need to be there? (found in the footnotes)

- Does the comma need to be there?

Chapter 3


- Not noticeable in the post but in the pdf the one is missing making it the year 982.

- ...significant clue in 1986 when he...

- ... so observers have yet to still find Nemesis.

- ...major extinctions coincide with a 27 million year cycle.

All done in the source file. Thanks!

 

[Pierre]

Some more.

Chapter 4:


- Logically one considers cometary events as solely agents... (or a cometary event)

- Tree growth...

- The rings after the event are markedly wider. (Caption under the tree ring image.)

- Charles Darwin euphemistically coined the Venus flytrap as “one of the most wonderful [plants] in the world”.

- The Carolina bays host a number a fauna and flora species found nowhere else on our planet.

Chapter 6:


-... my(?)...

Chapter 7:


- ...followed by life explosions marked by the emergence of new and more complex lifeforms.

- ...the oldest land animal, a millipede species called Pneumodesmus [8] along with the first land plant, known as Eohostimella heathana.

- ...an elaborate camouflage apparatus[36] and with more genes than found in humans[37].

Chapter 8:


- When one zooms out over past eons, one can see that each geologic period marks the apparition of new life forms...

- The conception of evolution was still much alive for centuries,...

- Would 'with' instead of 'by' be better?

- This section is 'quoted' in the pdf but is not in the post version. I don't know if that matters.

- ...million...

- ...one extensive meta-study...

- ... billion years of existence.
- As shown in the quote above, not only do most species experience evolutionary leaps but that most species then experience long periods of total stagnation (stasis). This succession of sudden leaps and long periods of stagnation is totally contrary to the concept of (a) gradual change.

- ...periods...

- See Part II, Chapter 6 "The Cambrian Life Explosion" (found in the footnotes)

Chapter 9:


- Currently, the reorganizing of retroviruses in the genomes is leading to the birth of a new species:

- Out of 19...

- ...back in the...

-...have a nucleus...

-...that is found in humans is around...

-...described in part II.

-...Chapter 6(?)...


This is a fascinating read Pierre. I'm enjoying reading this as much as your first two! Thank you!

All corrected in the master file. Thanks!