Earth Has a 27.5-Million-Year 'Heartbeat', But We Don't Know What Causes It
JACINTA BOWLER
21 JUNE 2021
In the last 260 million years, dinosaurs came and went, Pangea split into the continents and islands we see today, and humans have quickly and irreversibly changed the world we live in.
But through all of that, it seems Earth has been keeping time. A new study of ancient geological events suggests that our planet has a slow, steady 'heartbeat' of geological activity every 27 million years or so.
This pulse of clustered geological events - including volcanic activity, mass extinctions, plate reorganizations and sea level rises - is incredibly slow, a 27.5-million-year cycle of catastrophic ebbs and flows. But luckily for us, the research team notes we have another 20 million years before the next 'pulse'.
"Many geologists believe that geological events are random over time," said Michael Rampino, a New York University geologist and the study's lead author.
https://www.sciencealert.com/our-planet-has-a-27-5-million-year-old-pulse-says-study-we-don-t-know-what-causes-it
