A palynological biozonation for the Maastrichtian Stage (Upper Cretaceous) of South Carolina, USA

Christopher, Raymond A.; Prowell, David C.

doi:10.1006/cres.2002.1029

Cretaceous Research

2002

DOI: 10.1006/cres.2002.1029

|View full text |Cite

A palynological biozonation for the Maastrichtian Stage (Upper Cretaceous) of South Carolina, USA

Raymond A. Christopher

David C. Prowell

Help me understand this report

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...

Citation Types

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Year Published

2005

2020

Publication Types

Select...

Article5

Relationship

Self Cite0

Independent5

Authors

Journals

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…More than a decade later, the disappearance of this and other palynomorphs was linked to an iridium anomaly (Orth et al, 1981;Tschudy et al, 1984), which Alvarez et al (1980) recognized as evidence of a large asteroid impact responsible for the K/Pg mass-extinction event. Eventually, the disappearance of Trisectoris pollen would be recognized as a high-resolution palynostratigraphic marker for the K/Pg boundary in eastern North America (Christopher and Prowell, 2002), and it would be discovered that dispersed cuticle and fossil wood attributed to Austrobaileyales also disappeared from the fossil record of the Raton Basin and Antarctica, respectively, at the K/Pg boundary (Upchurch, 1995;Poole and Cantrill, 2006).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Seed traits linked to differential survival of plants during the Cretaceous/Paleogene impact winter

Berry¹

2020

Acta Palaeobotanica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In past investigations the pattern of differential survival of plants across the K/Pg boundary has been viewed as incompatible with severe asteroid impact winter scenarios (i.e., an impact winter lasting more than a few months), particularly the enigmatic survival of coryphoid palms and Pandanus (screw pine). Stateof- the-art climate models based on soot, sulfate and nano-sized dust aerosols predict a global impact winter that drastically reduced precipitation and resulted in a transient period of total darkness and permafrost conditions. This suggests that the plants most likely to have been affected by the global mass-extinction event were tropical phanerophytes that produce recalcitrant seeds, which by definition are desiccation-intolerant, survive less than a year, and cannot survive freezing. However, this hypothesis has never been tested. In this study I sampled over 100 plant species from the global fossil record that have a high probability of having produced either recalcitrant seeds/disseminules (n1 = 58) or orthodox seeds (n2 = 59), based on their phylogenetic relationships with extant taxa that either are monomorphic for these traits or specifically exhibit a genetic marker for abscisic acid inhibition associated with seed dormancy and recalcitrance. A one-tailed z-test for the difference between two proportions revealed that plant taxa with a high probability of having produced recalcitrant seeds had significantly lower survivorship than plant taxa with a high probability of having produced orthodox seeds (p < 0.0001). Based on these data, it can be concluded that plants which formed a frost-tolerant seed bank during the latest Maastrichtian were significantly more likely to survive the K/Pg impact winter than plants which did not (including palms). These data clearly indicate that the K/Pg impact winter probably lasted longer than a year and that it selected for seed-based traits that effectively sorted correlated functional traits of mature plants (i.e., leaf physiognomic features). This novel hypothesis stands as an alternative to J.A. Wolfe’s classic hypothesis that a mild K/Pg impact winter selected for fast-growing angiosperms with deciduous leaves and did not affect the plant communities of the Southern Hemisphere. Potential mechanisms for the rare survival of tropical, recalcitrant-seeded plants are discussed.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Seed traits linked to differential survival of plants during the Cretaceous/Paleogene impact winter

Berry¹

2020

Acta Palaeobotanica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

A palynological biozonation for the uppermost Santonian and Campanian Stages (Upper Cretaceous) of South Carolina, USA

Christopher¹,

Prowell²

2010

Cretaceous Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Morphology and size variation of a portunoid crab from the Maastrichtian of the Americas

Vega

Phillips

Nyborg

et al. 2013

Journal of South American Earth Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact Info

hi@scite.ai

10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614

Henderson, NV 89052, USA

Blog Terms and Conditions API Terms Privacy Policy Contact Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Made with 💙 for researchers

Part of the Research Solutions Family.

A palynological biozonation for the Maastrichtian Stage (Upper Cretaceous) of South Carolina, USA

Cited by 6 publications

References 20 publications

Seed traits linked to differential survival of plants during the Cretaceous/Paleogene impact winter

Seed traits linked to differential survival of plants during the Cretaceous/Paleogene impact winter

A palynological biozonation for the uppermost Santonian and Campanian Stages (Upper Cretaceous) of South Carolina, USA

Morphology and size variation of a portunoid crab from the Maastrichtian of the Americas

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About