Do Periodicities in Extinction—with Possible Astronomical Connections—Survive a Revision of the Geological Timescale?
Abstract
A major revision of the geological timescale was published in 2012. We re-examine our past finding of a 27 Myr periodicity in marine extinction rates by re-assigning dates to the extinction data used previously. We find that the spectral power in this period is somewhat increased, and persists at a narrow bandwidth, which supports our previous contention that the Nemesis hypothesis is untenable as an explanation for the periodicity that was first noted by Raup & Sepkoski in the 1980s. We enumerate a number of problems in a recent study comparing extinction rates with time series models.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- August 2013
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0004-637X/773/1/6
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1307.1884
- Bibcode:
- 2013ApJ...773....6M
- Keywords:
-
- astrobiology;
- dust;
- extinction;
- methods: statistical;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Galaxy Astrophysics;
- Physics - Biological Physics;
- Physics - Geophysics;
- Quantitative Biology - Populations and Evolution
- E-Print:
- 13 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal