Error discovered in my previous writings about 586.24 million year geological cycle – Ray Tomes

 

Previously I have interpreted a frequently mentioned figure of 586.24 million years in Afanasiev’s book “Nanocycles Method” (in Russian) as a geological cycle period and used it extensively in my analysis of cycles. Recently the whole book was scanned and OCR done then translation to English. We intend to publish the book in English soon. It is now understood that this figure is actually a date (i.e. 586.24 million years ago) of a particular formation rather than a cycle period. I mention this now as it has introduced possibly multiple errors into my work. However the extent of the errors is being examined at this time. Some background:

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1. Western geologists mention in “Megacycles” collection of papers edited by George Williams in Australia that there are cycles of 600, 300, 150, 74 and 37 million years. Clearly with ratios of 2. The last two figures can be used to estimate the longest cycle as 592 million years which I took to be 586 million years from Afanasiev’s figure when he gave me a copy of his book.

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2. ​From wikipedia it can be seen that there are cycles of similar periods to the above in known data such as temperature and CO2 levels:​​​

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3. Mass Extinctions have been reported to follow a 27 million year cycle and here is a graph of some mass extinction data:

 

It can be seen that the two periods of 26.65 and 36.64 million years fit well to the peaks of the mass extinctions. Also when the two coincide there are higher peaks. These two periods are 293.12 million years (half of 586.24 million years) divided by 11 and 8. This supports there being strong cycles of periods close to 586.24, 293.12, 146.56, 73.28, 36.64 and also 26.65 million years. 

 

The beats between the two cycles are very clear and indicates that the 8:11 ratio is very accurate, while the accuracy of the two periods is probably less that 1% which would make the 586 million year period uncertain by up to 5 million years.

 

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide shows two cycles over the last 600 million years for a cycle period of approximately 300 million years, consistent with the geological cycles periods. Over that period, CO2 levels have risen from about 300 ppm to 6000 ppm, back to 300 ppm and then up to 2000 ppm before falling to 300 ppm again and rising recently to 430 ppm. The period is rather uncertain but looks to be a little less than 300 million years.

 

When considering all the periods estimated for the longer cycles there is no reason to change the values used but every reason to consider the uncertainties as much higher but still less than 1%.

 

These periods in years remain as my best estimates of the cycles between hundreds of millions of years and about a week.