Scientia Press

Asteroid impact at Chicxulub, Yucatan clearly played a role in the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction that wiped out the non-flying dinosaurs 66,000,000 years ago, though scientists point to the serious disruptions that had begun hundreds of thousands of years before with the basalt flows of the Deccan Traps.1 Giant basalt lava flows that poisoned the atmosphere and oceans played a role in four or perhaps all five major extinctions. But other enormous basalt flows have not caused extinctions, nor did they cause the tsunamis associated with various extinctions.2  Researchers have suggested many other mechanisms, but there’s no consensus at all.

Lurking in the background, however, is a quite plausible cause, one that would have possessed the power to set off the volcanic activity, air pollution, mass wasting, sea level shifts, loss of oxygen in oceans, climate changes, and other phenomena associated with the extinctions.

The Martian Theory

The new candidate is the Martian Theory of Mass Extinctions (MTME). According to MTME, repeated approaches by Mars to Earth at irregular intervals caused tidal movements in already stressed geological formations, setting off widespread volcanic eruptions and activating mantle heating and plumes that led to hundreds of thousands of years of gargantuan lava flows. Mountainous tsunamis and earthquakes added to the destruction.

According to MTME, for billions of years since their origin in the outer solar system, whence Jupiter’s gravity pulled them inward, Earth and Mars had eccentric orbits that led them to interact, best evidenced from 600,000,000 to 65,000,000 years ago. At random intervals, the two planets would have close encounters, triggering the mass extinctions on Earth and parallel massive geological activity on Mars (gigantic volcanoes and the extensive uplifted Tharsis region, surrounded by concentric wrinkle ridges up to 2000 km away). It seems plausible that the same gravitational force of Earth that lifted the Tharsis region also caused the giant rift of the nearby Valles Marineris, though exactly how is not clear. In other words, tidal locking during a close approach would account for several of the outstanding features of the surface of Mars as well as lesser ones like the up-to-6 km high cliff around Olympus Mons and the uplifted perched craters. The exceptionally high discharge rate (one million cubic meters of water per second3) on Mars seems consistent with a great external force such as the gravitational pull of Earth.  Roughly speaking, the closer the encounter, the greater the extinction on Earth and the geological activity on Mars, so MTME could account for minor extinctions as well, though these might have had other causes.

The same process of gravitational rifting that created the Valles Marineris may also have carved out the original Grand Canyon, with its smaller size reflecting the less powerful gravitational pull of Mars on the Earth.  The Barrancas del Cobre valleys of northwest Mexico, usually explained as resulting from volcanic activity 30-40,000,000 years ago, might actually have originated at the same time and in the same way.

Occasional interactions seem to have gone much farther back in time and may account for the huge Martian outwash channels (from rapidly melted permafrost and release of water from underground reservoirs) and volcanoes such as Elysium Mons as well (the uplift of the Tharsis region began before 4 billion years ago).  Approaches of Earth could account for the evidence of giant tsunamis on Mars about 3.4 billion years ago.4  Tectonic activity and weathering on the Earth would have destroyed much of the evidence of early interactions, but clues on Mars could lead to a reinterpretation of early evidence on Earth that would show hitherto unnoticed disruptions during the first 2 1/2 billion years of life.  Clustered dramatic fluctuations in climate and radical drops in photosynthesis, for instance, are characteristic of Slushball Earth episodes and of the five main mass extinctions, so they may share a common Martian approach trigger.

Encounters with Mars provide a possible cause of various gaps in the stratigraphic record as well as of some of the overthrusts found worldwide.  In theory, as Mars came closest to the Earth, its gravity could lift and pull stratigraphic layers nearly horizontally across the landscape.5  Repeated approaches of Mars from somewhat different angles would cause the patchquilt effect seen around the world, with a few areas completely spared.  Passages of Mars are also a possible explanation for the plutonic extrusions of the anorthosite belts in both hemispheres, dated roughly 1.6–1.1 billion years ago6, and they may account for earlier extrusions in the greenstone belts.

Cyclical approaches of Mars would explain the perception of one researcher that there could have been “serial extra-terrestrial insults” that kept the extinctions going and cut short attempted recoveries.7 Finally, perhaps after a particularly close encounter, the path of the smaller Mars (roughly 1/9.5 the mass of Earth) would be altered by the interaction with Earth, and Mars would adopt a somewhat different orbit for tens of millions of years. Then mutual gravitational attraction would gradually bring the two planets together again.  Over many encounters, their orbits grew less eccentric, making encounters unlikely.

Objections

Objection #1.  In keeping with the Moon’s tiny influence on tidal heating of Earth, Mars would not possess the capacity to induce sufficient heating to melt rocks and initiate the lava flows of flood basalts.  But Mars has approximately 9 times the mass of the Moon.  Therefore, at the Moon’s current distance from the Earth of 384,000 km, Mars would exert 9 times the force of the Moon.  At 38,400 km, Mars would exert 9 x 10 = 90 times the force of the Moon.  And at 3,840 km, Mars would exert 90 x 10 = 900 times the force of the Moon.

Objection #2.  Even a force hundreds of times the gravitational force of the Moon would not set off a massive flood basalt flow.  In regard to the Earth’s lithosphere, some geologists favor the explanation of the flood basalts as triggered by heating and melting of rock in a relatively small zone just outside the edge of a craton and not too deep.  The heating and melting then propagate to entrain more rock from beneath the craton to heat up, melt, and flow.8  Also, the amount of gravitational force (=tidal heating) exerted by Mars necessary to bring the initial rock up to the melting point would not be large because the gravitational pull would “seek out” the point of vulnerability where the existing temperature of the rock (increasing with depth) plus the added tidal heating (according to a gravitational pull gradient diminishing with depth) would first surpass the temperature needed to melt sufficient rock.

Alternatively, Mars’ gravitational pull could set off a powerful earthquake that would in turn lead to heating and melting of rock at the point of vulnerability.  Direct heating by tidal friction and indirect heating via a seismic intermediary could also have acted together to trigger melting of rock.

Or an approach of Mars could have triggered a response in the fluid, largely iron outer core that, in turn, would cause a mantle plume that would fuel the eruption of flood basalts.

Objection #3.  The force exerted by Earth on Mars at such close quarters would have melted the entire surface of Mars, assuming that Mars came close enough to melt a part of the Earth’s lithosphere.  This effect, however, would be constricted by tidal locking.  Either the great volcanoes or the Tharsis bulge would lock onto Earth during an encounter, and so the greatest force of Earth’s gravity would focus on that point.  In turn, the surface of the surrounding area of the northern hemisphere of Mars might indeed melt, but the locking would keep the surface of Mars’ southern hemisphere intact.  As Mars rotated upon approaching Earth, whatever part of Mars’ surface would initially come into closest contact with Earth would quickly give way to Mars’ most vulnerable and prominent locking points—the volcanoes and the Tharsis bulge—so that the southern hemisphere would never undergo sustained, severe, direct gravitational pull.

In other words, during a near miss Mars would have possessed a much greater capacity than the Moon to cause tidal heating on Earth yet would avoid having its entire surface melted by Earth.9

Searching for Evidence

How can we test the Martian Theory?

1. Comparing the Bronze Age catastrophes and the mass extinctions could shed light on both.  A Revised Venus Theory corrects mistakes in the original theory of Immanuel Velikovsky and adduces more evidence that Venus repeatedly neared Earth.  During the Bronze Age catastrophes and under the influence of Venus’ gravity, Earth turned over four times, in approximately 2200, 1628, 1210, and 820 BC. Giant tsunamis swept far inland in China and elsewhere.  Since Mars exerted a larger gravitational effect during its very close prehistoric encounters, it is likely that the Earth inverted in response, and much more rapidly than the ten-day duration of the Bronze Age inversions, perhaps in a single day, thereby upturning the water column and disrupting circulation patterns.  Each rapid prehistoric inversion would have caused tsunamis that dwarfed those of the Bronze Age and would have greatly contributed to the exceptional devastation of the mass extinctions.  Evidence of such tsunamis has been mistakenly attributed to bolide impacts.10  MTME would also explain the evidence for a tsunami in a southern embayment of Argentina11 better than the Chicxulub impact.  Repeated very close approaches of Mars could have caused several inversions in close proximity,12 while the rapidity and hence the destructiveness of the inversion could have been related to the closeness of approach, which would explain why the largest five mass extinctions differed in extent.
2. We need to seek much better detail on Martian volcanic activity. For instance, pinning down the initial date of a Martian volcano to the date of a mass extinction would constitute telling evidence, and a sequence of matching dates from Martian stratigraphy would be even more persuasive.  The double extinctions of Late Devonian and Permian eons, for instance, could be matched by a parallel pattern in Martian volcanoes, and other patterns on Mars may fit the contours and idiosyncrasies of the great mass extinctions on Earth.  Meanwhile, Hellas depression at the antipodes of the Tharsis region, while clearly formed by an impact that scattered debris for 4000 km, could conceivably have been deepened, as the most vulnerable part of the antipodes, by the Earth’s gravitational pull on the opposite side of Mars.  This would account for its exceptional depth (8200 meters).
3. Given the possibility that during some encounters Mars would have come close to the Moon, a search on the Moon also might yield evidence. In particular, the large maria formed by lava flows on the Moon might have in part be caused by early close encounters of the Moon, as well as the Earth, with the Red Planet. The disproportion between their presence on the near side (31.2 % of its surface) and the far side (2.5%) has defied explanation. But a report13 of domes ranging from less than 1 km to more than 6 km, some with steeply sloping sides, in the Compton-Belkovich thorium anomaly on the far side suggests that the gravitational pull of a passing Mars could have uplifted the domes; and it might have caused the lava flows that formed the few maria as well. In other words, pulled by Earth’s gravitational field, Mars tended to pass between Earth and Moon during encounters; but occasionally it presumably passed outside of the Moon.  The finding of major spikes in the past 400 million years in the numbers of lunar spherules, some from pyroclastic eruptions, would also be consistent with approaches by Mars.14  Again, the Bronze Age approaches of Venus to Earth could have affected the surface of the Moon as well.
4. We can hunt for evidence that Earth pulled matter from Mars during close approaches.  For instance, the extraterrestrial origin of the Buckyballs described in L. Becker et al.15 might have been Mars, and other finds of matter on Earth of Martian origin may be tied to the dates of presumed approaches.

Why the MTME?

Why should we think that the Martian Theory of Mass Extinctions is the long-sought solution to the mystery of the mass extinctions?

1. Close approaches of Mars would have had the requisite power to set off tremendous seismic and volcanic activity, which in turn could entrain the other phenomena associated with extinctions.  Rapid inversions would add worldwide, continent-sweeping tsunamis as a kill mechanism.
2. The colossal volcanoes and uplifted Tharsis region of Mars are consistent with tidal locking during repeated encounters with Earth.
3. MTME offers apposite answers to why the extinctions differed in size, why they were so terrifically destructive, why they contained serial insults, and why they included minor extinctions as well.
4. A body of evidence and theory about the approaches of Venus and Mars during the Bronze Age catastrophes parallels what is known about the great mass extinctions.
5. According to the Outer Solar System Origin of the Terrestrial Planets, the orbits of both Earth and Mars were initially highly eccentric.  Thus their orbits were much more likely to cross at their extremities.  Each interaction, in turn, would have tended to nudge each orbit toward circularization, leading to today’s configuration.
6. Approaches by Mars would perfectly fulfill the apparent criterion of a powerful perpetrator who committed the crime, then disappeared without leaving a single footprint—and then returned at random intervals to the scene of the crime to commit another and another and another.16

Kenneth J. Dillon is a scientific and historical researcher.  See the biosketch at About Us.  For further discussion, see the video

The Martian Theory of Mass Extinctions

The Revised Venus Theory and MTME figure in the plot of Dillon’s novel Rosemarie.