Technology
Earth has ‘heartbeat’ that causes ‘catastrophe’ of floods, eruptions and extinctions every 27.5million years, says study
EARTH has a destructive ‘heartbeat’ of geological activity that ‘beats’ every 27.5million years, according to a new study.
Researchers think they’ve spotted a pattern in major geological events that have happened over the vast history of the Earth, including extinctions, eruptions and floods.
New research suggests Earth has a geological ‘heartbeat’ that can cause extinctions[/caption]
Luckily, the scientists think we have another 20million years to go before the next geological ‘heartbeat’.
Michael Rampino, a New York University geologist, is the study’s lead author.
He said: “Many geologists believe that geological events are random over time.
“But our study provides statistical evidence for a common cycle, suggesting that these geologic events are correlated and not random.”
The researchers say global geologic events are generally clustered at 10 different time-points over the past 260 million years and appear in pulses of about every 27.5million years[/caption]
The team analysed 89 major geological events that have happened over the past 260 million years.
They made graphs to show peaks in geological activity and how they seem to cluster together.
The graphs show how world changing events have often happened close together in catastrophic ‘pulses’ of activity.
The team explain: “These events include times of marine and non-marine extinctions, major ocean-anoxic events, continental flood-basalt eruptions, sea-level fluctuations, global pulses of intraplate magmatism, and times of changes in seafloor-spreading rates and plate reorganizations.
“Our results suggest that global geologic events are generally correlated, and seem to come in pulses with an underlying ~27.5-million-year cycle.”
This isn’t the first time that geologists have tried to work out a pattern for geological events.
In the 1980s and 90s a theory arose that the world changing events happened around every 26.2 to 30.6million years.
The new study puts a more precise timeline in place.
The researchers explain in their paper: “These cyclic pulses of tectonics and climate change may be the result of geophysical processes related to the dynamics of plate tectonics and mantle plumes, or might alternatively be paced by astronomical cycles associated with the Earth’s motions in the Solar System and the Galaxy.”
This full study has been published in journal Geoscience Frontiers.
A timeline of life on Earth
Here’s a brief history of life on our planet
- 4.6billion years ago – the origin of Earth
- 3.8billion years ago – first life appears on Earth
- 2.1billion years ago – lifeforms made up of multiple cells evolve
- 1.5billion years ago – eukaryotes, which are cells that contain a nucleus inside of their membranes, emerge
- 550million years ago – first arthropods evolve
- 530million years ago – first fish appear
- 470million years ago – first land plants appear
- 380million years ago – forests emerge on Earth
- 370million years ago – first amphibians emerge from the water onto land
- 320million years ago – earliest reptiles evolve
- 230million years ago – dinosaurs evolve
- 200million years ago – mammals appear
- 150million years ago – earliest birds evolve
- 130million years ago – first flowering plants
- 100million years ago – earliest bees
- 55million years ago – hares and rabbits appear
- 30million years ago – first cats evolve
- 20million years ago – great apes evolve
- 7million years ago –first human ancestors appear
- 2million years ago – Homo erectus appears
- 300,000 years ago – Homo sapiens evolves
- 50,000 years ago – Eurasia and Oceania colonised
- 40,000 years ago – Neandethal extinction
Most read in Science
In other news, the last Supermoon of the year will brighten up the night sky this week.
China successfully launched a three person crewed mission to build its own space station.
And, the European Space Agency has revealed it will be sending a probe called EnVision to study the planet Venus.
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