Cosmic rays produced at the edge of our galaxy have devastated life on Earth every 62 million years, researchers say.
The finding suggests that biodiversity has been strongly influenced by the motion of the solar system through the Milky Way and of the galaxy's movement through intergalactic space.
Mikhail Medvedev and Adrian Melott, both of the University of Kansas, presented their new theory at a meeting of the American Physical Society earlier this month.
The theory offers the first explanation for a mysterious pattern previously noted in the fossil record.
"There are 62-million-year ups and downs in the number of marine animals over the last 550 million years," Melott said.
Comment: In short, "nothing to worry about, go back to sleep". Funny that they come out with this at the present moment.
It is well known that there are other major extinctions and the cycle is not ONLY every 62 million years! There is also a very strong signal for a 26 million year extinction cycle. The different estimates of the number of major mass extinctions in the last 540 million years are due mainly to what the individual researcher chooses as the threshold for naming an extinction event as "major" as well as what set of data he selects as the determinant measure of past diversity. As it happens, the 62 million event data stems mainly from marine fossil evidence.
The classical "Big Five" mass extinctions identified by Raup and Sepkoski in 1982 are widely agreed upon as some of the most significant. They are:
The late Ordovician period (about 438 million years ago) - 100 families extinct - more than half of the bryozoan and brachiopod species extinct.
78 million years later: The late Devonian (about 360 mya) - 30% of animal families extinct.
106 million years later: At the end of the Permian period (about 245 mya) - Trilobites go extinct. 50% of all animal families, 95% of all marine species, and many trees die out.
37 million years later: The late Triassic (208 mya) - 35% of all animal families die out. Most early dinosaur families went extinct, and most synapsids died out (except for the mammals).
143 million years later: At the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary (about 65 mya) - about half of all life forms died out, including the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ammonites, many families of fishes, clams, snails, sponges, sea urchins and many others.
As you can see from the above, using the number "62 million years" and building a theory on it is really a bit misleading.
Raup and Sepkoski are mentioned as identifying the "Big Five", but the fact is that Sepkoski, a University of Chicago paleontologist suggested that the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was part of a 26 million year cycle!! However, I would like to mention that if you multiply the 26: 3 X 26 is 78 - which just happens to be the time between the Ordovician and Devonian extinctions; 4 X 26 is 104 which is very close to the 106 million years between the Devonian and Permian extinctions; and 5 X 26 is 130, which (when dealing with these kinds of numbers) is close enough to the gap between the Triassic and K-T extinction to be in the ballpark. So, maybe there is something to this 26 million year thing after all, only each "return" has varying effects based on many other solar system variables. A companion star with a 26 million year orbit might be more stable, since Muller has suggested that a 62 million year orbit is too great to be stable.
As it happens, if we postulate the 26 million year orbit of a Companion Star, we would find that there ought to be a return about 39 million years ago, and then another 13 million years ago, which would put us half-way in the Companion star orbit cycle.
For more details read:
Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction!
Comment: The old adage, "If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably isn't" should be applied here. Converting biomass to fuel would in effect, mean the death of millions from starvation so that the rich can still maintain their luxurious lifestyle.