The Chicxulub asteroid impact and mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.
نویسندگان
چکیده
The Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary approximately 65.5 million years ago marks one of the three largest mass extinctions in the past 500 million years. The extinction event coincided with a large asteroid impact at Chicxulub, Mexico, and occurred within the time of Deccan flood basalt volcanism in India. Here, we synthesize records of the global stratigraphy across this boundary to assess the proposed causes of the mass extinction. Notably, a single ejecta-rich deposit compositionally linked to the Chicxulub impact is globally distributed at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. The temporal match between the ejecta layer and the onset of the extinctions and the agreement of ecological patterns in the fossil record with modeled environmental perturbations (for example, darkness and cooling) lead us to conclude that the Chicxulub impact triggered the mass extinction.
منابع مشابه
Mass extinction of birds at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary.
The effect of the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) (formerly Cretaceous-Tertiary, K-T) mass extinction on avian evolution is debated, primarily because of the poor fossil record of Late Cretaceous birds. In particular, it remains unclear whether archaic birds became extinct gradually over the course of the Cretaceous or whether they remained diverse up to the end of the Cretaceous and perished in th...
متن کاملChicxulub impact predates the K-T boundary mass extinction.
Since the early l990s the Chicxulub crater on Yucatan, Mexico, has been hailed as the smoking gun that proves the hypothesis that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs and caused the mass extinction of many other organisms at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary 65 million years ago. Here, we report evidence from a previously uninvestigated core, Yaxcopoil-1, drilled within the Chicxulub crater, i...
متن کاملPlant Ecological Strategies Shift Across the Cretaceous–Paleogene Boundary
The Chicxulub bolide impact caused the end-Cretaceous mass extinction of plants, but the associated selectivity and ecological effects are poorly known. Using a unique set of North Dakota leaf fossil assemblages spanning 2.2 Myr across the event, we show among angiosperms a reduction of ecological strategies and selection for fast-growth strategies consistent with a hypothesized recovery from a...
متن کاملGlobal climate change driven by soot at the K-Pg boundary as the cause of the mass extinction
The mass extinction of life 66 million years ago at the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary, marked by the extinctions of dinosaurs and shallow marine organisms, is important because it led to the macroevolution of mammals and appearance of humans. The current hypothesis for the extinction is that an asteroid impact in present-day Mexico formed condensed aerosols in the stratosphere, which caused the...
متن کاملReply to ‘Chicxulub impact predates K–T boundary: New evidence from Brazos, Texas’ Comment by Schulte et al
We appreciate this opportunity for further discussion of the Brazos, Texas, K–T boundary sequences and their timing with respect to the Chicxulub impact. Keller et al. (2007) used a multidisciplinary approach to document the stratigraphy, paleontology, mineralogy and geochemistry of the newly drilled Mullinax-1 core and a new outcrop sequence. Based on this multi-proxy dataset very strong evide...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- Science
دوره 327 5970 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2010