A 32-million year cycle detected in sea-level fluctuations over the last 545 Myr

Spectral analyses of past relative sea-level oscillations as represented by the ages of 57 Phanerozoic(the last 545 Myr)stratigraphic sequence boundaries from the Canadian Arctic show a strong spectral peak at 32 Myr(>99.9%confidence).These findings concur with previous reports of significant cycles with periods of around 30 Myr in various records of fluctuations of sea level,and in potentially related episodes of tectonism,volcanism,climate,and biotic extinctions.Sequence boundaries commonly coincide with stage boundaries based on biostratigraphy,and are correlated with episodes of extinction and times of flood-basalt volcanism.The connection between tectonics and sea-level variations may come from changes in rates of ocean-floor spreading and subduction,intraplate stresses from plate-reorganizations,and pulsations of hotspot volcanism.These coordinated periodic fluctuations in tectonics,sea level and climate may be modulated by cyclical activity in the Earth’s mantle,although some pacing by astronomical cycles is suspected.

A pulse of the Earth: A 27.5-Myr underlying cycle in coordinated geological events over the last 260 Myr

We performed spectral analyses on the ages of 89 well-dated major geological events of the last 260 Myr from the recent geologic literature. 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. The aggregate of all 89 events shows ten clusters in the last 260 Myr, spaced at an average interval of ~ 26.9 Myr, and Fourier analysis of the data yields a spectral peak at 27.5 Myr at the ≥96% confidence level. A shorter period of ~ 8.9 Myr may also be significant in modulating the timing of geologic events.Our results suggest that global geologic events are generally correlated, and seem to come in pulses with an underlying ~ 27.5-Myr cycle. 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.

Correlation of the largest craters,stratigraphic impact signatures,and extinction events over the past 250 Myr

The six largest known impact craters of the last 250 Myr(≥70 km in diameter),which are capable of causing significant environmental damage,coincide with four times of recognized extinction events at 36(with 2 craters),66,and 145 Myr ago,and possibly with two provisional extinction events at 168 and215 Myr ago.These impact cratering events are accompanied by layers in the geologic record interpreted as impact ejecta.Chance occurrences of impacts and extinctions can be rejected at confidence levels of99.96%(for 4 impact/extinctions)to 99.99%(for 6 impact/extinctions).These results argue that several extinction events over the last 250 Myr may be related to the effects of large-body impacts.