Plants and the K-T Boundary

Abstract

In this text, two of the world's leading experts in palynology and paleobotany provide a comprehensive account of the fate of land plants during the 'great extinction' about 65 million years ago. They describe how the time boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods (the K–T boundary) is recognised in the geological record, and how fossil plants can be used to understand global events of that time. There are case studies from over 100 localities around the world, including North America, China, Russia and New Zealand. The book concludes with an evaluation of possible causes of the K–T boundary event and its effects on floras of the past and present. This book is written for researchers and students in paleontology, botany, geology and Earth history, and everyone who has been following the course of the extinction debate and the K–T boundary paradigm shift.

Mass extinction of lizards and snakes at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary

“…Terrestrial ecosystems were particularly hard hit. Notably, the nonavian dinosaurs became extinct at this time (9), but the K-Pg event also resulted in severe extinctions among mammals (14), birds (15), insects (16), and plants (17). Given this, it would be remarkable had squamates not been affected.…”

“…Globally, few fossils are available to address this problem, because (i) squamates are generally small and lightly built, limiting their preservation potential, and (ii) few terrestrial sequences span the K-Pg boundary (17). Western North America is unique, however, in having a rich record of lizards and snakes from both the late Maastrichtian (5,(18)(19)(20)(21)(22) and the early Paleocene (23)(24)(25)(26)(27), making this the only place in the world where the problem can be studied.…”

The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary

“…Detailed investigation of continuous sequences from globally distributed marine and terrestrial sites yield no chemical or physical evidence of a large impact in the last million years of the Cretaceous other than the Chicxulub event (table S1 and fig. S16) (25,37,38 (14) nor a hiatus between the Chicxulub impact and the K-Pg boundary.…”

Grasping the Nature of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

“…Besides being of great scientific interest, NEOs also deserve our attention because they currently represent a well-founded threat to human beings and life in general on our planet. Indeed, past impacts on the Earth have already altered the evolutionary course of life (e.g., Jablonski 1994; Nichols & Johnson 2008), and there is no reason why asteroids and comets should not continue to hit the Earth at irregular and unpredictable intervals in the future (e.g., Perna et al 2013a, and the references therein).…”