Rampino Analysis Strengthens 27.5-Million-Year Earth Disaster Cycle Across 89 Events
Updated
Updated · ScienceAlert · Jul 27
Rampino Analysis Strengthens 27.5-Million-Year Earth Disaster Cycle Across 89 Events
2 articles · Updated · ScienceAlert · Jul 27
Summary
An Evolving Earth analysis re-examined 89 major geological events over 260 million years and found stronger evidence that Earth’s biggest upheavals cluster in a roughly 27.5-million-year cycle.
Updated geological ages and statistical methods linked mass extinctions, ocean anoxic events, flood-basalt eruptions, sea-level shifts and volcanism to that rhythm, with a weaker 8.9-million-year signal also appearing.
Rampino argues the pattern does not mean one catastrophe triggers another; instead, multiple Earth systems may be responding periodically to shared long-term drivers.
Possible drivers range from mantle convection and surface-load changes tied to climate and sea level to far more controversial galactic-plane crossings and comet perturbations, none of which has direct evidence yet.
The cycle remains disputed because ancient records are incomplete and dating grows less certain deeper in time, but confirmation would recast major disasters as recurring expressions of long-running planetary processes.