Life cycle
Posted on Saturday 19 March 2005 to unknown
From the guy who brought you the Nemesis theory, we now have something new to worry about. In a study
of underwater fossil records conducted by Richard A Muller and
Robert Rohde
of
Berkeley, there appears to be strong evidence that the
planet's
bio-diversity
fluctuates on an 62 million cycle. This cycle
overlays all
the major mass extinction
events in the past 500 million years, including the Permian-Triassic
extinction event which wiped out about
95% of
all marine species and the more
famous Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event
that killed
off the dinosaurs.
While the cycle appears to be quite clear in the data, the causes of
it
are
not. Muller has long favoured an astronomical explanations for
species
die off
but his co-researcher, Rohde, prefers the idea of massive
periodic
bouts
volcanism.
Whichever is the case, I'd just like to point out that the last low
point
in
this cycle happened just over 62 million years ago and that right
now
the
planet's bio-diversity is plummeting at an alarming rate. Perhaps, they're right when they argue that Doomsday really is nigh.
Also of note: the dinosaurs died of athletes foot.
