Gamma Ray Burst caused mass extinction? (With URLs to PDF Files)

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Fri Apr 10 23:10:48 EDT 2009

Gamma-Ray Burst Caused Mass Extinction? Anne Minard
National Geographic News, April 3, 2009,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090403-gamma-ray-extinction.html

There are a number of papers about this hypothesis.

Melott, A.L., B.S. Lieberman, C.M. Laird, L.D. Martin,
M.V. Medvedev, B.C. Thomas, J.K. Cannizzo, N. Gehrels,
and C.H. Jackman, 2004, Did a gamma-ray burst initiate
the late Ordovician mass extinction? International
Journal of Astrobiology, vol. 3, pp. 55-61.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=240775

The PDF file is at http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0309415

Thomas, B.C. C.H.. Jackman, A.L. Melott, C.M. Laird, RS.
Stolarski, N. Gehrels, J.K. Cannizzo, and D.P. Hogan, 2005.
Terrestrial Ozone Depletion due to a Milky Way Gamma Ray
Burst. The Astrophysical Journal Letters. vol. 622, no. 2,
pp. L153–L156.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/429799


The PDF file is at http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0411284

Dar, A. and A. De Rujula, 2002, The threat to life from
Eta Carinae and gamma ray bursts. Astrophysics and
Gamma Ray Physics in Space. Frascati Physics Series Vol. 24
pp. 513-523 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0110162

PDF file at http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0110162v2

Thomas, B.C., A.L. Melott1, C.H. Jackman, C.M. Laird, M.V.
Medvedev, R.S.. Stolarski, N. Gehrels, J.K. Cannizzo, D.P.
Hogan, and L.M. Ejzak, 2005, Gamma-Ray Bursts and the
Earth: Exploration of Atmospheric, Biological, Climatic and
Biogeochemical Effects. The Astrophysical Journal.
vol. 634, pp. 509-533 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0505472

PDF file at http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0505472

A.L. Melott and B.C.Thomas, Late Ordovician geographic
patterns of extinction compared with simulations of
astrophysical ionizing radiation damage.

PDf file at http://arxiv.org/pdf/0809.0899

Gamma-Ray Bursts as a Threat to Life on Earth
by B. C. Thomas. http://arxiv.org/pdf/0903.4710

Gamma-ray burst
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray_burst

Yours,

Paul H.