2020/11/14 by Lien Rodríguez‐López, Lien Rodríguez-López, Rolando Cardenas +5 · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Isotope Analysis in Ecology #Spaceflight effects on biology #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/asna.202113878
Contributed paper to the IWARA Conference, México September 2020, to be published by Astron. Nach. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1010.0727
arxiv created 2020/11/14 · openalex created_date 2020/11/23 · openalex publication_date 2021/01/01 · arxiv updated 2021/03/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The hypothesis that one or more biodiversity drops in the Phanerozoic eon, evident in the geological record, might have been caused by the most powerful kind of stellar explosion so far known Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) has been discussed in several works. These stellar explosions could have left an imprint in the biological evolution on Earth and in other habitable planets. In this work we calculate the short-term lethality that a GRB would produce in the aquatic primary producers on Earth. This effect on life appears because of ultraviolet (UV) retransmission in the atmosphere of a fraction of the gamma energy, resulting in an intense UV flash capable of penetrating tens of meters in the water column in the ocean. We focus on the action of the UV flash on phytoplankton, as they are the main contributors to global aquatic primary productivity. Our results suggest that the UV flash could cause a significant reduction of phytoplankton biomass in the upper mixed layer of the World Ocean.