Asteroid impact, not volcanism, caused the end-Cretaceous dinosaur extinction

2020/06/29 by Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, Alexander Farnsworth, Philip D. Mannion +4 · 5 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Evolution and Paleontology Studies #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Species Distribution and Climate Change

paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.2006087117

openalex publication_date 2020/06/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Significance We present a quantitative test of end-Cretaceous extinction scenarios and how these would have affected dinosaur habitats. Combining climate and ecological modeling tools, we demonstrate a substantial detrimental effect on dinosaur habitats caused by an impact winter scenario triggered by the Chicxulub asteroid. We were not able to obtain such an extinction state with several modeling scenarios of Deccan volcanism. We further show that the concomitant prolonged eruption of the Deccan traps might have acted as an ameliorating agent, buffering the negative effects on climate and global ecosystems that the asteroid impact produced at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary.

Citations

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Cited by

• Organic matter from the Chicxulub crater exacerbated the K–Pg impact winter
• Knowledge gaps and missing links in understanding mass extinctions: Can mathematical modeling help?
• Chicxulub impact tsunami megaripples in the subsurface of Louisiana: Imaged in petroleum industry seismic data
• Where did they come from, where did they go? Niche conservatism in woody and herbaceous plants and implications for plant‐based paleoclimatic reconstructions
• Dinosaur [wikipedia]

Related

• The extinction of the dinosaurs
• The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary
• Time Scales of Critical Events Around the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary
• Cretaceous Extinctions: Multiple Causes
• U-Pb geochronology of the Deccan Traps and relation to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction