Earth’s disasters strike every 27 million years – we’re due one soon

From devastating earthquakes to ᴅᴇᴀᴅly asteroid impacts, our planet’s biggest disasters have more in common than initially appears.

According to a new study, the most destructive events on Earth are based on a regular, hidden cycle.

Professor Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University, says that disasters strike once roughly every 27 million years.

And his predictions suggest that we could be due for a cataclysm in the not–too–distant future.

In a new paper, Professor Rampino re–examines 89 geological events spanning the past 260 years using the latest age data and statistical techniques.

These events include marine mᴀss extinctions, oceans suddenly being depleted of oxygen, vast chains of eruptions and earthquakes, fluctuations in sea levels, and changes in seafloor spreading rates.

According to his analysis, these events are connected by a main 27–million–year cycle – as well as shorter or longer patterns linking some types of event.

That means, despite having wildly different causes and effects, all of Earth’s worst disasters could be triggered by a single, hidden planetary pulse.

Professor Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University, says that disasters strike once roughly every 27 million years. This could mean Earth is due for a new disaster soon 

The idea that Earth’s geological upheavals follow a regular pattern dates back to the 1980s.

The concept has proven extremely controversial, with many geologists arguing that there is no single mechanism that could connect such disparate events.

However, Professor Rampino remains adamant that there really is something deeper behind all of the mᴀss extinction events.

In his paper, published in the journal Evolving Earth, Professor Rampino writes: ‘While these ideas are still mostly outside the mainstream of current geological thinking, they could be the first steps in an important conceptual breakthrough in the Earth sciences.’

Alongside the main 27–million–year cycle, there are shorter mini–cycles, connecting some events every 8.9 million years.

Some disasters also appear to be connected by an even longer interval, up to 270 million years apart.

According to Professor Rampino, these events could be connected by nearly imperceptible shifts taking place deep within the Earth.

Beneath the outer layer of the crust, the Earth’s semi–liquid mantle circulates at an incredibly slow rate through convection.

In a new study, Professor Rampino analysed 89 geological disasters and mᴀss extinction events, revealing what he believes to be a deeper cycle 

If there are periodic changes in this circulation, it could trigger huge increases in volcanic activity, plate tectonics, and other large–scale geological processes.

Since all of these systems are so closely interlinked, changes happening deep within the Earth could have ᴅᴇᴀᴅly knock–on effects in the oceans, climate, and biosphere.

For example, Professor Rampino looked at the ages of continental flood basalts, areas of cooled lava covering thousands of square miles that are the result of mᴀssive volcanic eruptions.

Not only do the ages of these flood basalts match up almost exactly with his 27–million–year–cycle, but they also coincide with two of Earth’s biggest mᴀss extinction events.

Another alternative explanation is that long–term variations in Earth’s orbit influence the distribution of ice, water, and sediments across the planet.

Professor Rampino suggests these could subtly alter the stresses in Earth’s crust and influence volcanic and tectonic activity over millions of years.

At present, there is no direct evidence to support either mechanism as a cause of disasters.

However, the most intriguing explanation places the blame for these disasters on Earth’s movements within the galaxy as a whole.

Geological upheavals appear to be connected by a main 27–million–year cycle, as well as shorter cycles of about 8.9 million years and longer ones lasting up to 290 million years

These cycles could be linked to long–term convection patterns inside the Earth’s mantle, the semi–liquid layer beneath the crust 

Over millions of years, our solar system wobbles up and down across the plane of the Milky Way, crossing the centre–line every 30 million years.

Professor Rampino points out that the timing of these crossings aligns with major upheavals on Earth.

The gravity of nearby stars during this crossing could disturb comets out in the distant Oort cloud, making a devastating asteroid impact more likely.

Alternatively, as the Earth moves through the crowded galactic centre, it picks up some of the dark matter densely packed in this region.

These dark matter particles could collect in the Earth’s core and annihilate each other, triggering a mᴀssive release of heat.

He writes: ‘The great surge of heat released in this annihilation process could be up to 250 times the Earth’s present internal heat flux, which could initiate an intense pulse of global geologic activity.

‘Such a major global geologic disturbance would be predicted about every 30 My or so as the Solar System encountered dense clumps of dark matter near the Galactic mid–plane.’

Professor Rampino points out that nine of the Earth’s 13 mᴀss extinction events occur within 0.3 to six million years of crossing the galactic plane.

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Alternatively, Professor Rampino believes the disasters could occur when the Earth cross the plane of the Milky Way galaxy once every 30 million years 

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That could be particularly worrying news since Earth crossed the Galactic plane just three to four million years ago.

If this theory is correct, we could be due another disastrous geological upheaval anytime in the next two million years or so.

However, Professor Rampino admits that this is still a ‘very controversial mechanism’ and there is limited evidence to support its existence.

He added: ‘We note that these results run counter to long–accepted interpretations of the nature of the geologic record, especially regarding a supposed lack of regular multi–million–year cycles in Earth’s history.’

HOW THE DINOSAURS BECAME EXTINCT AROUND 66MILLION YEARS AGO

Dinosaurs ruled the Earth around 66million years ago, but suddenly disappeared in what is known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction.

It was believed for many years that the changing climate destroyed the food chain of the huge reptiles. 

However, in the 1980s paleontologists discovered a layer of iridium – an element that is rare on Earth but found in vast quanтιтies in space.  

When this was dated, it coincided precisely with when the dinosaurs disappeared from the fossil record. 

A decade later, scientists uncovered the mᴀssive Chicxulub Crater at the tip of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, which dates to the period in question. 

Scientific consensus now says that these two factors are linked and they were both probably caused by an enormous asteroid crashing to Earth.

With the projected size and impact velocity, the collision would have caused an enormous shock wave and is likely to have triggered seismic activity. 

The fallout would have created plumes of ash thought to have covered the whole planet, making it impossible for dinosaurs to survive. 

Other animals and plant species had a shorter time-span between generations which allowed them to survive.

There are several other theories as to what caused the demise of the dinos. 

One early theory was that small mammals ate dinosaur eggs and another proposes that toxic angiosperms (flowering plants) killed them off.