Two-step extinction of Late Cretaceous marine vertebrates in northern Gulf of Mexico prolonged biodiversity loss prior to the Chicxulub impact.

ABSTRACT: Recent studies on mass extinctions are often based on the global fossil record, but data from selected paleogeographic regions under a relatively constant paleoenvironmental setting can also provide important information. Eighty-nine marine vertebrate species, including cartilaginous and bony fish and marine reptiles, from northern Gulf of Mexico - located about 500 km from the Chicxulub crater - offer a unique opportunity to determine an extinction process during the last 20 million years of the Late Cretaceous. Our diversity data show two separate extinction events: (i) the 'Middle Campanian Crisis' (about 77 Mya) and (ii) the end-Maastrichtian (66 Mya) events. Whether this stepwise pattern of extinctions occurred locally or globally cannot be determined at present due to the lack of a d

SUBMITTER: Ikejiri T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7060338 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature