It’s been assumed that major geological events such as volcano eruptions and sea level change are random and may be a result of entropy, and there is no pattern to these events. According to a SciTechDaily article, NYU researchers plotted the number of major geological events for the last 260 million years and the simple bar chart appears to show a pattern where major geological events are clustered every 27.5 million years.
Does this apparent pattern suggest there is truly a natural cycle or pulse to major geological events, or could the pattern be too strongly influenced by unintentional bias in the classification of the significance of events? If this pattern holds true then the next cluster of major geological events is not expected for another 20 million years or so, giving us plenty of time to refine the forecast as additional geological data is collected and analyzed.
Are past indicators truly a prediction of future [geologic] performance or should they be disregarded similar to the conservative wisdom given by financial planners forecasting stock market predictions? Regardless, this is truly an interesting idea that the Earth may have a long term plan for its future geological activity! – Mike Batten, DTC Civil Geological Instructor
