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 at 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 and Sepkoski in the 1980s. We enumerate a number of problems in a recent study comparing extinction rates with time series models.

13 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (3)

• Considering the Case for Biodiversity Cycles: Reexamining the Evidence for Periodicity in the Fossil Record
• Nemesis Reconsidered
• A ubiquitous ~62 Myr periodic fluctuation superimposed on general trends in fossil biodiversity: II, Evolutionary dynamics associated with periodic fluctuation in marine diversity

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