Creationism in Crisis - The 36 Million-Year Geological Cycle That Drives Burst of Biodiversity.

Oceans Through Time

Smithsonian Institution

Scientists discover 36-million-year geological cycle that drives biodiversity - The University of Sydney

The thing about believing Earth is only 8,000 years old is that the cognitive dissonance that arises when evidence such as these 36 million-year geological cycles can cause all manner of bizarre, childish behaviour, like pretending the facts aren't there and if you don't look at them, they'll go away, or going on line and lying in the social media in the hope that, if you can fool a few more simpletons into believing your counter-factual superstition, it'll become true because whether facts are true or not doesn't depend on evidence but on how many people believe they are true.

This bizarre behaviour in an adult comes directly from the fact that, as research has shown, creationism, like conspiracism, is caused by a thinking defect where an adult has retained a childhood mode of thinking known as teleological thinking where nothing happens unless there is agency and where everything, even elementary particles are sentient and aware of whatever a directing entity is telling them to do. To a toddler, questions like, "How does DNA know how to mutate?" or "How does natural selection know what to select?" seem like intelligent questions.

And underlying the whole thing is the unshakeable belief that what their mummy and daddy believed must be true, because mummy and daddy are always right.

So, imaging the cognitive dissonance this latest piece of research will cause the truubuleeving creationist. Not only does it concern an Earth that is many orders of magnitude older than they believe Earth and the Universe have existed for, but it explains the periodic bursts of biodiversity caused by change in the fundamental environment - just as the Theory of Evolution predicts, and which, incidentally, could explain the appearance of 'punctuated equilibrium' in the fossil record.

The research, which has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was led by Associate Professor Slah Boulila from Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Institut des Sciences de la Terre Paris, Paris, France, and included Professor Dietmar Müller, from the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. The team also included Shanan E Peters of the Department of Geoscience, University of Madison, Madison, WI, USA, Bilal U. Haq of the Département d’astronomie, Université de Genève, Genève, Switzerland.

It is explained in a news release from Sydney University:

Tectonic changes alter sea levels that can create breeding grounds for life

Movement in the Earth's tectonic plates indirectly triggers bursts of biodiversity in 36-million-year cycles by forcing sea levels to rise and fall, new research has shown.

Dinosaur Stampede exhibit at Dinosaur Canyon, located in Queensland’s Winton Formation which was formed during the Cretaceous period.

© Australian Age of Dinosaurs

Researchers including geoscientists at the University of Sydney believe these geologically driven cycles of sea level changes have a significant impact on the diversity of marine species, going back at least 250 million years.

As water levels rise and fall, different habitats on the continental shelves and in shallow seas expand and contract, providing opportunities for organisms to thrive or die. By studying the fossil record, the scientists have shown that these shifts trigger bursts of new life to emerge.

The research has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, led by Associate Professor Slah Boulila from Sorbonne University in Paris.

250 million-year re-creation of the geography of Earth, showing the interplay between plate tectonics and sea level variations.

Credit: Paleomap Project and Michael Chin

In terms of tectonics, the 36-million-year cycle marks alterations between faster and slower seafloor spreading, leading to cyclical depth changes in ocean basins and in the tectonic transfer of water into the deep Earth. These in turn have led to fluctuations in the flooding and drying up of continents, with periods of extensive shallow seas fostering biodiversity.

This work was enabled by the GPlates plate tectonic software, developed by the EarthByte Group at the University of Sydney, supported by Australia’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) via AuScope.

This research challenges previous ideas about why species have changed over long periods. The cycles are 36 million years long because of regular patterns in how tectonic plates are recycled into the convecting mantle, the mobile part of the deep Earth, similar to hot, thick soup in a pot, that moves slowly.

The Cretaceous Winton Formation stands as a testament to the profound impact of these sea-level changes, capturing a snapshot of a time when Australia's landscape was transformed and fascinating creatures roamed the land.

Professor Dietmar Müller, co-author
School of Geosciences
University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

The team based their findings on the discovery of strikingly similar cycles in sea-level variations, Earth's interior mechanisms and marine fossil records.

Scientists now have overwhelming evidence that tectonic cycles and global sea level change driven by Earth's dynamics have played a crucial role in shaping the biodiversity of marine life over millions of years.

Artist’s impression of Diluvicursor pickeringi in the rift valley of the Australian-Antarctic plate during the early Cretaceous – modern day Cape Otway, Victoria.

Credit: P. Trusler (CC BY 4.0)

Professor Müller said the Cretaceous Winton Formation in Queensland serves as a prime example of how sea-level changes have shaped ecosystems and influenced biodiversity in Australia.

The formation, renowned for its collection of dinosaur fossils and precious opal, provides a valuable window into a time when much of the Australian continent was flooded.

As sea levels rose and fell, the flooding of the continent created expanding and contracting ecological recesses in shallow seas, providing unique habitats for a wide range of species.

Long-term tectonic, sea-level and biodiversity cycles are unrelated to human-induced climate change and do not alter short-term future climate projections.

The statement of significance and the abstract to the team's paper in PNAS is published open access, but, regrettably, the main body of the report is behind an expensive paywall:

Significance

The evolution of life on Earth has changed dramatically at tens of million-year (Myr) time scales. However, the causal mechanisms of these biotic changes remain conjectural. Here, we show evidence of cycles of tens of Myr in marine animal fossil data over the last 250 Myr. We find similar, correlatable cycles in sea-level and Earth’s interior processes, suggesting that long-term marine biodiversity was paced by geodynamically driven global sea-level cycles. We argue that biotic diversity has fluctuated by quasi-cyclical continental flooding and retreat of the ocean, expanding and contracting ecological niches on shelves and on epeiric seas.

Abstract

The fossil record reveals that biotic diversity has fluctuated quasi-cyclically through geological time. However, the causal mechanisms of biotic diversity cycles remain unexplained. Here, we highlight a common, correlatable 36 ± 1 Myr (million years) cycle in the diversity of marine genera as well as in tectonic, sea-level, and macrostratigraphic data over the past 250 Myr of Earth history. The prominence of the 36 ± 1 Myr cycle in tectonic data favors a common-cause mechanism, wherein geological forcing mechanisms drive patterns in both biological diversity and the preserved rock record. In particular, our results suggest that a 36 ± 1 Myr tectono-eustatically driven sea-level cycle may originate from the interaction between the convecting mantle and subducting slabs, thereby pacing mantle-lithospheric deep-water recycling. The 36 ± 1 Myr tectono-eustatic driver of biodiversity is likely related to cyclic continental inundations, with expanding and contracting ecological niches on shelves and in epeiric seas.

Boulila, Slah; Peters, Shanan E.; Müller, R. Dietmar; Haq, Bilal U.; Hara, Nathan (2023)
Earth’s interior dynamics drive marine fossil diversity cycles of tens of millions of years
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(29), e2221149120. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2221149120.

Copyright: © 2023The authors.
Published by PNAS. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

As the theory of Evolution predicts, with the environment driving evolution by selecting from variations in the population (in Darwin's terms, by preserving favoured races) a major environmental change caused by cyclical plate tectonic activity, produces a major change in biodiversity. Once again, the observed facts confirm the theory, and incidentally refute basic beliefs of creationist.

And of course, because there is clear cause and effect, the geological evidence and the palaeontological evidence both reflect the same geological events, showing how the TOE is confirmed by several strands of science, not just the fossil, genetic, physiological and morphological evidence.

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