The Chicxulub asteroid impact and mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary

Schulte Peter (1) , Laia Alegret (2) , Ignacio Arenillas (2) , José A. Arz (2) , Penny J. Barton (3) , Paul R. Bown (4) , Timothy J. Bralower (5) , Gail L. Christeson (6) , Philippe Claeys (7) , Charles S. Cockell (8, 9) , Gareth S. Collins (10) , Alexander Deutsch (11) , Tamara J. Goldin (12) , Kazuhisa Goto (13) , José M. Grajales-Nishimura (14) , Richard A. F. Grieve (15) , Sean P. S. Gulick (16) , Kirk R. Johnson (17) , Wolfgang Kiessling (18) , Christian Koeberl (19) , David A. Kring (20) , Kenneth G. Macleod (21) , Takafumi Matsui (22) , Jay Melosh (23) , Alessandro Montanari (24) , Joanna V. Morgan (10) , Clive R. Neal (25) , Douglas J. Nichols (17) , Richard D. Norris (26) , Elisabetta Pierazzo (27) , Greg Ravizza (28) , Mario Rebolledo-Vieyra (29) , Wolf Uwe Reimold (18) , Eric Robin (30) , Tobias Salge (31) , Robert P. Speijer (32) , Arthur R. Sweet (33) , Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi (34) , Vivi Vajda (35) , Michael T. Whalen (36) , Pi S. Willumsen (35)

1 FAU - Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
2 University of Zaragoza - Universidad de Zaragoza [Zaragoza]
3 CAM - University of Cambridge [UK]
4 Department of Earth Sciences [UCL london]
5 Penn State - Pennsylvania State University
6 JSG - Jackson School of Geosciences
7 ESSc - Earth System Science Group [Brussels]
8 PSSRI - Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute [Milton Keynes]
9 CEPSAR - Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research [Milton Keynes]
10 Imperial College London
11 Institut für Planetologie [Münster]
12 University of Vienna [Vienna]
13 School of Engineering [Tohoku Univ]
14 IMP - Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo
15 Earth Sciences Sector
16 University of Texas at Austin [Austin]
17 Denver Museum of Nature and Science
18 Museum für Naturkunde [Berlin]
19 Department of Lithospheric Research [Wien]
20 Center for Lunar Science and Exploration [Houston]
21 Department of Geological Sciences [Columbia]
22 Dept of Complex Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Frontier Science
23 Purdue University [West Lafayette]
24 OGC - Osservatorio Geologico di Coldigioco
25 CEEES - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Science [Notre Dame]
26 SIO - UC San Diego - Scripps Institution of Oceanography
27 PSI - Planetary Science Institute [Tucson]
28 Department of Geology and Geophysics [Mānoa]
29 CICY - Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Yucatan
30 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
31 Bruker Nano GmbH
32 EES - Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences [Leuven]
33 NRCan - Natural Resources Canada
34 UNAM - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México = National Autonomous University of Mexico
35 Department of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences [Lund]
36 UAF - University of Alaska [Fairbanks]

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

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Earth Sciences; Paleontology

Schulte Peter, Laia Alegret, Ignacio Arenillas, José A. Arz, Penny J. Barton, et al.. The Chicxulub asteroid impact and mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. Science, 2010, 327 (5970), pp.1214. ⟨10.1126/science.1177265⟩. ⟨cea-00818136⟩