The Chicxulub asteroid impact and mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary
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Schulte Peter
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- Function : Correspondent author
- PersonId : 946072
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Philippe Claeys
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 768401
- ORCID : 0000-0002-4585-7687
- IdRef : 087723379
Eric Robin
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 172851
- IdHAL : robin-eric
- ORCID : 0000-0002-5596-2640
Abstract
The Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary ~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