▪ Abstract  The Chicxulub crater ejecta stratigraphy is reviewed, in the context of the stratigraphy of underlying and overlying rock sequences. The ejecta sequence is regionally grouped in (a) thick polymict and monomict breccia sequences inside the crater and within 300 km from the rim of the crater known from drill holes in and close to the breater, and exposures near the border of Yucatan and Belize; (b) Gulf of Mexico region, <2500 m from the crater, with up to 9 m thick, complex, tsunami-wave influenced, tektite-bearing sequences in shallow marine (<500 m deep) environments and tektite bearing, decimeter thick gravity-flow deposits in deep water sites; (c) an intermediate region between 2500 and 4000 km from the crater where centimeter thick, tektite-bearing layers occur, and (d) a global distal region with a millimeter thin ejecta layer. The distal ejecta layer is characterized by sub-millimeter sized microkrystites, often rich in Ni-rich spinels and (altered) clinopyroxene. Wherever present, the ejecta layers mark exactly the sudden mass-mortality horizon of the K/T boundary. What exactly caused the mass mortality is still uncertain, but it appears the main event leading to the K/T mass extinctions.

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Highly expanded Cretaceous–Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary section from the Chicxulub peak ring, recovered by International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP)–International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) Expedition 364, provides an unprecedented window into the immediate aftermath of the impact. Site M0077 includes ∼130 m of impact melt rock and suevite deposited the first day of the Cenozoic covered by <1 m of micrite-rich carbonate deposited over subsequent weeks to years. We present an interpreted series of events based on analyses of these drill cores. Within minutes of the impact, centrally uplifted basement rock collapsed outward to form a peak ring capped in melt rock. Within tens of minutes, the peak ring was covered in ∼40 m of brecciated impact melt rock and coarse-grained suevite, including clasts possibly generated by melt–water interactions during ocean resurge. Within an hour, resurge crested the peak ring, depositing a 10-m-thick layer of suevite with increased particle roundness and sorting. Within hours, the full resurge deposit formed through settling and seiches, resulting in an 80-m-thick fining-upward, sorted suevite in the flooded crater. Within a day, the reflected rim-wave tsunami reached the crater, depositing a cross-bedded sand-to-fine gravel layer enriched in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons overlain by charcoal fragments. Generation of a deep crater open to the ocean allowed rapid flooding and sediment accumulation rates among the highest known in the geologic record. The high-resolution section provides insight into the impact environmental effects, including charcoal as evidence for impact-induced wildfires and a paucity of sulfur-rich evaporites from the target supporting rapid global cooling and darkness as extinction mechanisms.

The Cretaceous/Palaeogene mass extinction eradicated 76% of species on Earth. It was caused by the impact of an asteroid on the Yucatán carbonate platform in the southern Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago , forming the Chicxulub impact crater. After the mass extinction, the recovery of the global marine ecosystem-measured as primary productivity-was geographically heterogeneous ; export production in the Gulf of Mexico and North Atlantic-western Tethys was slower than in most other regions, taking 300 thousand years (kyr) to return to levels similar to those of the Late Cretaceous period. Delayed recovery of marine productivity closer to the crater implies an impact-related environmental control, such as toxic metal poisoning , on recovery times. If no such geographic pattern exists, the best explanation for the observed heterogeneity is a combination of ecological factors-trophic interactions , species incumbency and competitive exclusion by opportunists -and 'chance'. The question of whether the post-impact recovery of marine productivity was delayed closer to the crater has a bearing on the predictability of future patterns of recovery in anthropogenically perturbed ecosystems. If there is a relationship between the distance from the impact and the recovery of marine productivity, we would expect recovery rates to be slowest in the crater itself. Here we present a record of foraminifera, calcareous nannoplankton, trace fossils and elemental abundance data from within the Chicxulub crater, dated to approximately the first 200 kyr of the Palaeocene. We show that life reappeared in the basin just years after the impact and a high-productivity ecosystem was established within 30 kyr, which indicates that proximity to the impact did not delay recovery and that there was therefore no impact-related environmental control on recovery. Ecological processes probably controlled the recovery of productivity after the Cretaceous/Palaeogene mass extinction and are therefore likely to be important for the response of the ocean ecosystem to other rapid extinction events.

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The Phanerozoic paleontological record is marked by several biological extinction events. One of them, at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary, was responsible for the demise of about 50% of genera and 75% of species, including the dinosaurs. These drastic and abrupt changes in the development of life on Earth puzzled paleontologists in the past. Many a cause was put forward to account for them, amongst them climate changes, disease, or overspecialization. About 20 years ago, Alvarez et al. [1980] discovered a high iridium concentration in an Italian K/T boundary clay layer.They proposed that the iridium was derived from an extra‐terrestrial impact 65 Ma ago, and that the impact was the cause for the K/T boundary extinctions. The iridium layer was subsequently found at K/T boundary locations worldwide. Further evidence for a K/T impact came from the discovery of shocked quartz, nano‐diamonds, glass spherules, and nickel‐rich spinels in microkrystites in the iridium‐rich layer. There was evidence for an impact event, but no crater.

The ~180-km-diameter Chicxulub peak-ring crater and ~240-km multiring basin, produced by the impact that terminated the Cretaceous, is the largest remaining intact impact basin on Earth. International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) Expedition 364 drilled to a depth of 1335 m below the sea floor into the peak ring, providing a unique opportunity to study the thermal and chemical modification of Earth’s crust caused by the impact. The recovered core shows the crater hosted a spatially extensive hydrothermal system that chemically and mineralogically modified ~1.4 × 105 km3 of Earth’s crust, a volume more than nine times that of the Yellowstone Caldera system. Initially, high temperatures of 300° to 400°C and an independent geomagnetic polarity clock indicate the hydrothermal system was long lived, in excess of 106 years.

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