Dark Matter May Have Caused Earth’s Cataclysms, Mass Extinctions

There are many things we think we know about dark matter. Not being an expert, I decided to post this here because I'm not going to try and defend any one position on the topic. It is a highly speculative theory with little evidence at the moment. Nonetheless, it gave my brain something to chew on.

Analyzing the pattern of the Earth’s passes through the disc, Prof Rampino noted that these passages seem to correlate with times of comet impacts and mass extinctions of life.

The earth makes a complete circle around our Milky Way every 250 million years. Every 30 million years within this cycle, our planet along with the rest of the solar system, likes to bob and weave through the supposed perturbations of dark matter.


As the solar system travels around the Galactic disc, it's path becomes disturbed by dense pockets of dark matter. These pockets are like encountering a speed bump doing 80mph on an endless lane highway.


The orbital trajectory of many stars, planets, comets and asteroids become thrown off course and can potentially get in the way of each other. Not only is there a greater threat of impact, we are beginning to understand how dark matter affects our own planets composition.

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

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.

Heating the planets core? You don't say! As Earth passes through these dips in the Galactic disc, it also collect dark matter within it's core. Some say the accumulation is causing the center of our planet to heat up. Have you ever have the flu? When your core temp increases, you radiate heat that can be felt on the surface of your body, much like the surface of earth.

Eventually, the dark matter particles annihilate each other, producing considerable heat. The heat created by the annihilation of dark matter in Earth’s core could trigger events such as volcanic eruptions, mountain building, magnetic field reversals, and changes in sea level, which also show peaks every 30 million years.

Considering what forum we're in, I have no problem adding this to the global warming/climate change theories that suggest that our planet is heating up from the inside out, much how a microwave cooks it's food. But, if you understand how Earth sheds it's heat, an increase in core temperature does not drastically increase temperatures on the surface. It does make for an upset stomach though, followed by a large burp.

Earth heat transport occurs by conduction, mantle convection, hydrothermal convection, and volcanic advection. Earth's internal heat flow to the surface is thought to be 80% due to mantle convection, with the remaining heat mostly originating in the Earth's crust, with about 1% due to volcanic activity, earthquakes, and mountain building. Thus, ~99% of Earth's internal heat loss at the surface is by conduction through the crust, and mantle convection is the dominant control on heat transport from deep within the Earth.

What this means is, the warming of earths core doesn't necessarily contribute to an increase in surface and atmospheric temperatures as much as the Sun is to blame.

The flip side is that the increase in temperature followed by the rapid heating and cooling of the lower mantle causes Earth to throw it's weight around and stomp it's feet. The increase in pressure is certainly going to have geological effects.


It amazes me to think that dark matter is not only accountable for extraterrestrial threats, but changes within on our planet as well. It seems ironic to blame Earth's geological and climate change mysteries on a force/particle we don't fully understand. But in the gray, it sure is a fun topic to speculate about. What do you think? Is dark matter to blame for all of Earth's changes through history?

Source
Another related ATS thread with great info: Link

a reply to: eisegesis

Don't know if it's relevant to the thread but a while ago, I have read about a team that investigated what they called (if I remember well) unassociated events. It was seismic events that were not associated with any known cause and were happening on opposite side of the planet at relatively the same time. Like some meteorite made of weakly interacting matter were to pass thru the Earth, just leaving seismic signal of its journey but no detectable damage.

I can't think of anything to say…

Dark matter is really strange – we don’t know what it is and we can’t see it. The existence and properties of dark matter are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the large-scale structure of the Universe. In other words, we can’t see it, but we can see its effects… and we pretty much have no idea what it is. It’s one of the biggest mysteries of astrophysics, especially when you consider that dark matter outweighs normal matter 6 times.

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originally posted by: intrptr
I can't think of anything to say…

Dark matter is really strange – we don’t know what it is and we can’t see it. The existence and properties of dark matter are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the large-scale structure of the Universe. In other words, we can’t see it, but we can see its effects… and we pretty much have no idea what it is. It’s one of the biggest mysteries of astrophysics, especially when you consider that dark matter outweighs normal matter 6 times.

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Strange stuff. Almost sounds like 'ghosts of planets passed' or something! The stuff of The Twilight Zone.

originally posted by: new_here

originally posted by: intrptr
I can't think of anything to say…

Dark matter is really strange – we don’t know what it is and we can’t see it. The existence and properties of dark matter are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the large-scale structure of the Universe. In other words, we can’t see it, but we can see its effects… and we pretty much have no idea what it is. It’s one of the biggest mysteries of astrophysics, especially when you consider that dark matter outweighs normal matter 6 times.

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Strange stuff. Almost sounds like 'ghosts of planets passed' or something! The stuff of The Twilight Zone.

Some hold that the spirit realm is one explanation. If its energy and everywhere too, but not registering on the instruments, hmmm.

Huh, I read recently that there are strong implications that the Dark Matter is located in a halo all around the galaxy (every galaxy that is), not being concentrated in the disc. Therefore there would be no special effects thanks to more Dark Matter in the disc doing bad things to earth.

a reply to: eisegesis

Well you figure eventually dark matter and other various type that make up the ones we don't see. Will eventually lose it's carbon. So yes with stars and planets being connected via wifi. I'd say this is a quantum measurement for the macrocosm.

a reply to: PeterMcFly

Like some meteorite made of weakly interacting matter were to pass thru the Earth, just leaving seismic signal of its journey but no detectable damage.

I could only dig up a few sources based off of your post. Is this what you were referring to? I would love your help to find a more legitimate source.

Collapsed dark matter, weakly interacting massive energetic entropic particles orbiting above and entering through the surface of the Earth into orbit with the Earth’s center of mass in a multi-body decaying orbit pattern with other particles.

From a seismic standpoint, after one of these massive particles has entered into a circumhorizontal orbit above and/or below ground, one may observe a low frequency seismic or magnetic signature typically with a typical period of 1-100 seconds or longer (0-1 Hz frequency range) depending upon the initial orbital speed and orbital distance traveled by the particle.

Here's another link.

A mysterious boom shook buildings and created a loud sound in various cities in Alabama, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Earthquakes were ruled out for Alabama and Georgia, but for parts of Wisconsin, the booms were linked and associated with a minor quake. Government agencies ruled out aircraft or possible sonic booms, and there were no reports of gas explosions, possible meteors, or even a bomb explosion. For residents in these areas, the mystery remains.

originally posted by: eisegesisBut, if you understand how Earth sheds it's heat, an increase in core temperature does not drastically increase temperatures on the surface.

In support of hollow earth theories, it could be why, at least on of the reasons, the arctic is melting.
On the other end, what if the core heats up so much that the best solution is to build vent holes that reach the core?
And, Geo-thermal energy could become even more viable? Maybe we could even harvest that dark matter?

This idea about dark matter brings more questions than answers...

point is does this dark matter they talk about even exist? scientists if you ask me are grabbing at straws trying to fit things in for things to just make sence to them.

mean i watched a documentary last night where even stephen hawking said himself that there could be another universe where our laws of physics don,t even exist.

now if hes saying our laws don,t exist in that universe then why should they exist in ours?just cause everyone says so and your suppose to believe it? i,m not convinced.

our greatest minds in last few years have had to admit they were wrong about a few things,not going to go into every example but enceladus moon is one example that to them was impossible.

There is a possibility of a correlation IMO.

Here are some more threads about dark energy and such that are relevant.

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...


Galactic Plane

Is there a genocidal countdown built into the motion of our solar system? Recent work at Cardiff University suggests that our system's orbit through the Milky Way encounters regular speedbumps - and by "speedbumps" we mean "potentially extinction-causing asteroids".

Professor William Napier and Dr Janaki Wickramasinghe completed computer simulations of the motion of the Sun in our outer spiral-arm location in the Milky Way that revealed a regular oscillation through the central galactic plane, where the surrounding dust clouds are the densest. The solar system is a non-trivial object, so its gravitational effects set off a far-reaching planetoid-pinball machine which often ends with comets being hurled into the intruding system.

The sun is about 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is about 80,000 to 120,000 light-years across (and less than 7,000 light-years thick). We are located on on one of its spiral arms, out towards the edge. It takes the sun -and our solar system- roughly 200-250 million years to orbit once around the Milky Way. In this orbit, we are traveling at a velocity of about 155 miles/sec (250 km/sec).

Many of the ricocheted rocks collide with planets on their way through our system, including Earth. Impact craters recorded worldwide show correlations with the ~37 million year-cycle of these journeys through the galactic plane - including the vast impact craters thought to have put an end to the dinosaurs two cycles ago.

scitechdaily.com...

Just as the movement of tectonic plates reveals the properties of Earth’s interior, the movements of the galaxies reveal information about the main constituents of the Universe: dark energy and dark matter. Dark matter is unseen matter whose presence can be deduced only by its effect on the motions of galaxies and stars because it does not give off or reflect light. Dark energy is the mysterious force that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.

The video captures with precision not only the distribution of visible matter concentrated in galaxies, but also the invisible components, the voids and the dark matter. Dark matter constitutes 80 percent of the total matter of our universe and is the main cause of the motions of galaxies with respect to each other. This precision 3-D cartography of all matter (luminous and dark) is a substantial advance.

The correspondence between wells of dark matter and the positions of galaxies (luminous matter) is clearly established, providing a confirmation of the standard cosmological model. Through zooms and displacements of the viewing position, this video follows structures in three dimensions and helps the viewer grasp relations between features on different scales, while retaining a sense of orientation.

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

Thanks for all your hard work!

After reading your links, I tried to piece something together.

This map shows the currents of galaxies in the universe. The galaxies (white spheres) are like dead branches in a sea. Currents carry them from an island (galaxy cluster) to the closest larger island of galaxies, the Great Attractor region. Red and yellow colors show the islands, and dark blue shows the voids that galaxies avoid by following the currents.

Voids or pockets? Sound to me that these are the same concentrations of dark matter mentioned in the OP. Stars and their planets can get knock off course trying to avoid these areas which lead to some pretty nasty collisions.

The Cosmic Flows project has mapped visible and dark matter densities around the Milky Way galaxy up to a distance of 300 million light-years.

Map showing all galaxies in the local universe color-coded by their distance to us: blue galaxies are the closest, and red are farther, up to 300 million light-years away.


That's quite a lot that can go wrong up there! Dark matter is collecting and concentrating in this 300 million light year circumference and anything in motion that comes into contact with a concentrated pocket, will encounter their gravitational effect. Every thirty to sixty million years, our planet becomes affected by them. You might think these concentrations exist randomly, but they appear to lay themselves out in a way that forms a correlation to crater formation on Earth.

a reply to: eisegesis

The concentrations aren't ''random'' and that is something scientists are researching.

The links I posted show the information about how Earth is affected by such universal forces, from dark energy /matter, electromagnetics, traversing the galaxy /galactic plane and that the inner earth and it's cyclical fluxes cause global warming. It is all there in the links.

I posted the link to this thread as it explains it more and I don't have the time for detailed posts on ATS at the moment.

www.bbc.co.uk...

The finding was based on studies of more than 200,000 galaxies. Scientists used two separate kinds of observation to provide an independent check on previous dark energy results. Two papers by an international team of researchers have been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal. One type of observation used by the astronomers involves measuring a pattern in how galaxies are distributed in space. This pattern is known by the term "baryon acoustic oscillations". The second type of observation involves measuring how quickly clusters of galaxies have formed over time. Both of these techniques confirmed the existence of dark energy and the acceleration in the expansion of the Universe. The concept of dark energy was first invoked in the late 1990s by studying the brightness of distant supernovas - exploding stars. Einstein was right To explain why the expansion of the Universe was speeding up, astronomers had to either rewrite Albert Einstein's theory of gravity or accept that the cosmos was filled with a novel type of energy. "The action of dark energy is as if you threw a ball up in the air, and it kept speeding upward into the sky faster and faster," said co-author Dr Chris Blake of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. "The results tell us that dark energy is a cosmological constant, as Einstein proposed. If gravity were the culprit, then we wouldn't be seeing these constant effects of dark energy throughout time."

You might think these concentrations exist randomly, but they appear to lay themselves out in a way that forms a correlation to crater formation on Earth.

a reply to: eisegesis

I've always thought that empty space was actually some sort of membrane so I guess the current model of Dark Matter is our best guess at what that membrane actually is then?

a reply to: eisegesis

The pictures you posted are from the link on my comment, for ATS mods and anyone wanting to read further about them, it corresponds to the video a few posts back.

It is a map of dark energy /matter in the universe and currents of galaxies.

scitechdaily.com...

a reply to: eisegesis

I would love your help to find a more legitimate source.

I read it a long time ago and did not investigate. Here is what can be found as probably the original source, but may require some more digging inside the authors bio to find more originals papers:

Did quark matter strike Earth?

Whole Earth Seismic Telescope

Vigdor L Teplitz's Bio

I hope it will help.

Given that dark matter may or may not exist and if so, little is known, this is high speculation.

Having the periods coincide does tend to give some possibility of a link to the passage though.

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

Sorry, I didn't mean "you", bad choice of words. The implications of this theory are staggering. If we could fully understand how dark matter affects our own planet, we may even find a correlation within a much smaller timeframe than thirty million years.

I would love to do a much larger mega thread on the subject or maybe I can convince you!

a reply to: eisegesis

No worries.

IMO as I have been saying since the discovery of dark energy /matter that it is the most abundant universal force yet known to humanity and if it causes the accelerated expansion of the Universe then it most likely affects things on Earth, being within and of the Universe and subject to it's energies.

The recent research that I posted about climate being caused by volcanic activity ties with volcanic activity being affected by electromagnetics etc and is evidence of the unsurprisingly cyclical nature of a planet within a solar system that traverses a galaxy within a Universe abundant with galaxies all of which being subject to currents.

As for a thread on it, sounds like a plan. I don't have the time to make a thread at the moment but perhaps somewhen, though a lot of information so far is on these threads and most of ATS seem uninterested in such Universe to local causation machinations, ironically, even the volcano /earthquake crew seem to avoid such things as the potential cause, perhaps too much reality for some. Perhaps if /when some more new relevant research appears.

Two new data points supporting this theory. The first a paper by two geologists referenced in this article published today I have yet to locate the paper itself.

The other is a book published by pop Physicist Lisa Randall this upcoming week called Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe

The timing of the paper and book would seem to imply some connection between the authors, or maybe is just The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe at work.

In any case, have at it folks.

*edit* I found the above mentioned paper.