Earth has witnessed some significant events that left a permanent mark on it. From dinosaurs’ extinction, Pangea’s great split to the world we see today, our planet has kept track of everything.
New research of ancient geological occurrences shows how Earth possesses a slow but constant “heartbeat” of some geological activity. Geologists found that the process happens every 27 million years or so.
Curious to find out more?
It’s All in a Heartbeat
The heartbeat of clustered geological history is quite intriguing yet peculiar. It includes plate reorganizations, volcanic activity, sea level rises, and even mass extinctions.
However, as per geologists’ findings, that pulse is very slow, and until the next one, we have to wait another 20 million years!
How they did it?
A team of bold geologists came up with a fascinating new analysis on the ages of 89 very well-acknowledged geological events from the last 260 million years (yes, that’s right!).
The team released a statement, explaining:
“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.”
Below there’s a graph that indicates how those events were:
Breakthrough study
Geologists have been examining a possible cycle in geological occurrences for a very long time. Fifty, sixty decades ago, scientists found that the geological record had a 30-million-year cycle, while recent times suggested a 26.2 to 30.6-million-year cycle.
Fortunately, we have now everything settled, and the 27.5 million year cycle is the most accurate option so far.
The team has also found that many of the events have one direct cause. For instance, anoxic events cause marine extinction. Other causes include comet strikes, and even Planet X is considered a culprit.
However, the team believed that if our planet has a geologic heartbeat indeed, it might be actually due to something a bit close to us.
