  The passage of the Earth through dense clumps of dark matter, the presence of
which are predicted by certain cosmologies, would produce large quantities of
heat in the interior of this planet through the capture and subsequent
annihilation of dark matter particles. This heat can cause large-scale
volcanism which could in turn have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and
other mass extinctions. The periodicity of such volcanic outbursts agrees with
the frequency of palaeontological mass extinctions as well as the observed
periodicity in the occurrence of the largest flood basalt provinces on the
globe.
