salamanderma

Is it true that cataclysmic events can leave a little marker on DNA? I read somewhere that a volcano caused a tweak that allowed us to date its occurrence. If this is true, how does it happen? Hypothetically speaking, could a tweak cause a change in evolution? Make us develop in a different way? Sorry - I don't mean to come across as glib. Forgive me if I'm suggesting a complete nonsense. I'm not a scientist. I'm a writer who likes to play 'what if'?

Thanks Fred, Spyman. Fred - where has it been done before? I'd appreciate it if you could clue me in. And Spyman - very interesting thread you redirected me to - some brilliant info collated by you. That's great. Do you know any good textbooks that deal with this subject? There's stuff I'm interested in that is perhaps just detail, too frivolous to be included in a serious investigation: how hot would the temperatures get? What would the sunsets be like? Could a man working as a diver at the bottom of the sea survive the initial blast?

I'm interested in this as a potential Extinction Level Event. I understand that life would end due to the destruction of the ozone layer, causing cancers and the collapse of the food chain. How long would this take from, say, the catastrophic effects on the ozone layer to the first cancers and then to the extinction of life on Earth? Would anything survive? If a man could survive that initial trauma, what kind of precautions would he need to take in order to go outside? Sorry for the melodrama... I'm a writer interested in what if...