[LINK] Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs

[Stephen Loosley]

An astonishing new scientific paper suggests that dark matter could have triggered not just the extinction of the dinosaurs, but also all the other mass extinctions on our planet too.

Publishing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Michael Rampino, a geoscientist at New York University in the US, explains that mass extinctions occur roughly ever 26 million to 30 million years on Earth - around the same time our Solar System passes through the disc of the Milky Way. 

This cycle in the range of 26–30 million years has been widely reported regarding mass extinctions. But also, terrestrial impact cratering (comet impacts) have been found to exhibit a similar cycle of 31 ± 5 million years. Thirdly, there is also a similar 30 million year periodicity observed in terrestrial geologic (eg volcanic, earthquake etc) activity, and, which may also be involved in the above-mentioned extinctions. 

Finally, the Sun's vertical oscillations through the plane of our galaxy's disc have also been estimated to take from 30 to 42 million years between each earth Galactic plane crossing.

That is, as the Sun follows the swirling motion of the Galaxy's arms in circling around the galactic centre, the Sun also moves up and down, periodically crossing the plane that cuts the Galaxy into a top and a bottom half. This new research suggests that as the Sun oscillates up and down,  it crosses a denser layer of dark matter causing a gravitational push and pull that disturbs comets in the Oort cloud. Hence, a thin disk of dark matter at the centre of the Galaxy could be causing the comet storms on earth with a periodicity of about 35 million years.

Thus, finally, these four observations taken together suggest that these cycles of geological and biological evolution on Earth may be partly controlled by dark matter and the rhythms of Galactic dynamics. 


Here's the Scientific Abstract for this new research:

"Disc dark matter in the Galaxy and potential cycles of extraterrestrial impacts, mass extinctions and geological events"

http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/448/2/1816

    By Michael R. Rampino

    Author Affiliations
    1 Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
    2 Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
    3 NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025, USA

    Author E-mail: mrr1 at nyu.edu

    Accepted 2014 December 30.
    Received 2014 December 29.
    First published online February 18, 2015.

Abstract

A cycle in the range of 26–30 Myr has been reported in mass extinctions, and terrestrial impact cratering may exhibit a similar cycle of 31 ± 5 Myr. These cycles have been attributed to the Sun's vertical oscillations through the Galactic disc, estimated to take from 30 to 42 Myr between Galactic plane crossings. Near the Galactic mid-plane, the Solar system's Oort Cloud comets could be perturbed by Galactic tidal forces, and possibly a thin dark matter (DM) disc, which might produce periodic comet showers and extinctions on the Earth. Passage of the Earth through especially dense clumps of DM, composed of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) in the Galactic plane, could also lead to heating in the core of the planet through capture and subsequent annihilation of DM particles. This new source of periodic heating in the Earth's interior might explain a similar 30 Myr periodicity observed in terrestrial geologic activity, which may also be involved in extinctions. These results suggest that cycles of geological and biological evolution on the Earth may be partly controlled by the rhythms of Galactic dynamics. 


See also:
http://www.nature.com/news/did-dark-matter-kill-the-dinosaurs-1.14839
http://www.sciencealert.com/new-hypothesis-suggests-dark-matter-wiped-out-the-dinosaurs

Cheers,
Stephen