Periodic impact cratering and extinction events over the last 260 million years

Theclaimsofperiodicityinimpactcrateringandbiologicalextinctioneventsarecontroversial. Anewlyrevisedrecordofdatedimpactcratershasbeenanalyzedforperiodicity,andcompared with the record of extinctions over the past 260 Myr. A digital circular spectral analysis of 37 crater ages (ranging in age from 15 to 254 Myr ago) yielded evidence for a significant 25.8 ± 0.6 Myr cycle. Using the same method, we found a significant 27.0 ± 0.7 Myr cycle in the dates of the eight recognized marine extinction events over the same period. The cycles detected in impacts and extinctions have a similar phase. The impact crater dataset shows 11 apparent peaks in the last 260 Myr, at least 5 of which correlate closely with significant extinction peaks. These results suggest that the hypothesis of periodic impacts and extinction events is still viable.

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