On the periodicity hypothesis of the ages of large impact craters |
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| Authors: | Shin Yabushita |
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| Institution: | Faculty of Informatics, Nara Sangyo University, Sango-cho, Nara 636-8503, Japan |
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| Abstract: | An analysis is made of the periodicity hypothesis of the ages of large craters, based on the compilation by Grieve with the addition of recently identified craters. A method earlier proposed by Broadbent is used to derive a period, and the significance of the derived period is tested by a Monte Carlo experiment. In accordance with the result of Stothers, the ages of large craters ( D >30 km) are shown to exhibit a period close to 37.5 Myr. Monte Carlo experiments show, however, that the derived period is far from being statistically significant. A subset of crater data earlier adopted by Napier for the purpose of similar investigation is also tested, and it is shown that they also exhibit a similar period at an almost identical level of confidence. A brief discussion is made of the relation between the derived period and that associated with faunal mass extinctions. |
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| Keywords: | methods: numerical comets: general Solar system: general |
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