New research indicates that changes in geological periods on Earth may not be as random as they seem.
The long and tumultuous history of the earth may be less random than it seems. A new published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters found that the events that geologists use to define the main transitions on the planet’s timeline, such as mass extinctions and evolutionary outbreaks, follow a hierarchical pattern hidden.
“Geological time scales may look like time-organized lines in the manuals, but their limits tell a much more chaotic story,” said co-author Andrej Spiridonov, geologist and paleontologist at Vilnius University in Lithuania. “Our findings show that what seemed an irregular noise is, in fact, the key to understanding how our planet changes and how far this change can go. ”
Geologists traditionally divide the 4.5 billion years of earth history into eons, ages, periods, eras and ages. Some changes, such as the impact of an asteroid that exterminated the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, were drastic enough to end the mesozoic era and inaugurate the scenzoic, which remains to this day. Others mark less catastrophic changes, but still transforming, in climate, ecosystems and in life, says.
So far, these borders They looked irregular and unpredictable. But Spiridonov and his team analyzed the current Fanerozoic Éon – which covers 540 million years and the paleozoic, mesozoic and scenozoic ages – using fossil data of ancient marine animals and microfossils such as condon and ammonoids. The authors found that the time of these divisions grouped consistently in groups separated by long periods of relative stability.
This pattern points to what scientists call “sistema multifractal“Where variability propagates over time in a structured and hierarchical way. According to Spiridonov,“ the intervals between key events in earth history are not completely distributed. They follow a multifractal logic that reveals how variability propagates over time. ”
Researchers have developed a new model, described as a “multifractal-poisson compound process” to map these standards. Their results suggest that in order to completely capture the range of behaviors on Earth, scientists need records that cover at least 500 million yearsideally closer to billion.
All human history, they observe, unfolded for just a relatively quiet period of this timeline. By better understanding the underlying cycles of the earth, researchers hope to refine the models of future planetary changes.
“We now have mathematical evidence that changes in the land system are not just irregular,” said Spiridonov. “They are deeply structured and hierarchical. This has enormous implications not only for the understanding of the Earth’s past, but also to the way we modeled future planetary changes. ”
