Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Aug 1981
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1981natur.292..529h&link_type=abstract
Nature, Volume 292, Issue 5823, pp. 529-531 (1981).
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
23
Scientific paper
Field study of the fossil and sedimentary record across the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary in Wyoming and Montana has been combined here with a reassessment of the published record of terrestrial palynomorphs to test recent hypotheses that a universal biotic catastrophe caused by an asteroid1-3, cometary impact4 or a supernova5 terminated the Cretaceous. Evidence from land plants is particularly critical because plants form the base of the terrestrial food chain. Thus, massive disruptions of the Earth's vegetation by the postulated effects of a cosmic disaster (blocking of solar radiation for several years by a dust cloud1, severe atmospheric heating1,4,6,7 or ionizing radiation5) would have an amplified effect on the land fauna. However, I report here that the geographically uneven and generally moderate levels of extinction and diversity change in the land flora, together with the non-synchroneity of plant and dinosaur extinctions, contradict hypotheses that a catastrophe caused terrestrial extinctions.
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