The Cretaceous-Tertiary biotic transition

MacLeod, Norman; Rawson, Peter F.; Forey, Peter L.; Banner, F. T.; BouDagher‐Fadel, Marcelle K.; Bown, Paul R.; Burnett, J. A.; Chambers, Paul; Culver, Stephen J.; Evans, SE; Jeffery, Charlie; Kaminski, Michael A.; Lord, Alan; Milner, Andrew R.; Morris, Noel J.; Owen, Ellis; Rosen, Brian; Smith, Andrew B.; Taylor, Paul D.; Urquhart, Elspeth; Young, Jeremy R.

doi:10.1144/gsjgs.154.2.0265

Cited by 256 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…The geochemical anomaly, which can be traced globally at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene transition, strengthens the hypothesis that the turnover seen in the palynological record is indeed instantaneous and not an artefact of an unrecognized hiatus in the sedimentological record as outlined by MacLeod et al (1997). However, plants have the advantage compared to animals that many have a dormant phase in their life cycle (spores and seeds), which potentially allowed them to survive long-term environmental upheaval and make a "come back", evident in the geological record.…”

Section: Summary Of Floristic Trends Across the Massextinction Eventssupporting

confidence: 79%

Extinction and recovery patterns of the vegetation across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary — a tool for unravelling the causes of the end-Permian mass-extinction

Vajda

McLoughlin

2007

Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology

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High-resolution palynofloral signatures through the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary succession show several features in common with the Permian-Triassic transition but there are also important differences. Southern Hemisphere CretaceousPalaeogene successions, to date studied at high resolution only in New Zealand, reveal a diverse palynoflora abruptly replaced by fungi-dominated assemblages that are in turn succeeded by low diversity suites dominated by fern spores, then gymnosperm-and angiosperm-dominated palynofloras of equivalent diversity to those of the Late Cretaceous. This palynofloral signature is interpreted to represent instantaneous (days to months) destruction of diverse forest communities associated with the Chicxulub impact event. The pattern of palynofloral change suggests wholesale collapse of vascular plant communities and short-term proliferation of saprotrophs followed by relatively rapid successional recovery of pteridophyte and seed-plant communities. The Permian-Triassic transition records global devastation of gymnosperm-dominated forests in a short zone synchronous with one or more peaks of the fungal/algal palynomorph Reduviasporonites. This zone is typically succeeded by assemblages rich in lycophyte spores and/or acritarchs. Higher in the succession, these assemblages give way to diverse palynofloras dominated by new groups of gymnosperms. Although different plant families were involved in the mass-extinctions, the general pattern of extinction and recovery is consistent between both events. The major difference is the longer duration for each phase of the Triassic recovery vegetation compared to that of the Paleocene. The protracted extinction-recovery succession at the Permian-Triassic boundary is incompatible with an instantaneous causal mechanism such as an impact of a celestial body but is consistent with hypotheses invoking extended environmental perturbations through flood-basalt volcanism and release of methane from continental shelf sediments.

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Section: Summary Of Floristic Trends Across the Massextinction Eventssupporting

confidence: 79%

Extinction and recovery patterns of the vegetation across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary — a tool for unravelling the causes of the end-Permian mass-extinction

Vajda

McLoughlin

2007

Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology

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“…However, with the exception of the marine mosasaurs, all major squamate lineages are thought to have survived the end of the Cretaceous. Consequently, the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction that ended the Mesozoic is considered to have had little effect on squamate evolution (4,6,7).…”

Section: Neuroscience Psychological and Cognitive Sciencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Its causes remain a matter of debate (7,(9)(10)(11)(12), but suggest that the extinction resulted from the Chicxulub asteroid impact (9)(10)(11)(12), when debris shot into the atmosphere by the impact would have darkened the skies, causing a shutdown of photosynthesis and subsequent collapse of the food chain (10)(11)(12)(13). Terrestrial ecosystems were particularly hard hit.…”

Section: Neuroscience Psychological and Cognitive Sciencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Longrich

Bhullar

Gauthier

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

158

148

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Fig. 1. The phylogenetic distribution of ABO phenotypes and genotypes. Shown is a phylogenetic tree of primate species, with a summary of phenotypic/ genotypic information given in the first column, and the genetic basis for the A versus B phenotype provided in the second column (functionally important codons at positions 266 and 268 are in uppercase letters). See Dataset S1 for the source of information about phenotypes/genotypes. Only species with available divergence times are represented here (34 of 40). The phylogenetic tree is drawn to scale, with divergence times (on the x axis) in millions of years taken from ref. 29. OWM, Old World monkeys; NWM, New World monkeys. Under a model of convergent evolution, these data suggest that A is the ancestral allele, and a turnover (e.g., a neutral substitution) occurred on the branch leading to Old World monkeys. If instead, B were ancestral, all Old World monkeys would have had to serendipitously converge from ATG to TTG to encode a leucine, whereas all New World monkeys and hominoids would have had to converge to the CTG codon.

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“…In contrast to planktics, benthic foraminifera with calcareous shells survived the event relatively intact, whether inhabiting shallow or deep waters (47). Inoceramid clams underwent 100% extinction but up to 13% of bryozoans and only rather few marine gastropods went extinct (10).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By contrast, there were much lower extinction rates for comparable noncalcareous groups, such as siliceous diatoms, of which at most 50% of species went extinct (10), organic-walled dinoflagellates, which experienced no significant extinction (11), and noncalcifying haptophyte phytoplankton, of which many clades survived the K/Pg (12). Similarly, among heterotrophs, more than 95% of carbonate-shelled planktic foraminifera were lost (10), whereas only a few planktic silica-shelled radiolaria went extinct (10). The particular severity of extinctions…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Severity of ocean acidification following the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact

Tyrrell

Merico

McKay

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Most paleo-episodes of ocean acidification (OA) were either too slow or too small to be instructive in predicting near-future impacts. The end-Cretaceous event (66 Mya) is intriguing in this regard, both because of its rapid onset and also because many pelagic calcifying species (including 100% of ammonites and more than 90% of calcareous nannoplankton and foraminifera) went extinct at this time. Here we evaluate whether extinction-level OA could feasibly have been produced by the asteroid impact. Carbon cycle box models were used to estimate OA consequences of (i) vaporization of up to 60 × 10 15 mol of sulfur from gypsum rocks at the point of impact; (ii) generation of up to 5 × 10 15 mol of NO x by the impact pressure wave and other sources; (iii) release of up to 6,500 Pg C as CO 2 from vaporization of carbonate rocks, wildfires, and soil carbon decay; and (iv) ocean overturn bringing high-CO 2 water to the surface. We find that the acidification produced by most processes is too weak to explain calcifier extinctions. Sulfuric acid additions could have made the surface ocean extremely undersaturated (Ω calcite <0.5), but only if they reached the ocean very rapidly (over a few days) and if the quantity added was at the top end of literature estimates. We therefore conclude that severe ocean acidification might have been, but most likely was not, responsible for the great extinctions of planktonic calcifiers and ammonites at the end of the Cretaceous.ocean acidification | asteroid impact | K/Pg boundary | mass extinction

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The Cretaceous-Tertiary biotic transition

Cited by 256 publications

References 104 publications

Extinction and recovery patterns of the vegetation across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary — a tool for unravelling the causes of the end-Permian mass-extinction

Extinction and recovery patterns of the vegetation across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary — a tool for unravelling the causes of the end-Permian mass-extinction

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

Severity of ocean acidification following the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact

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