Terminal Cretaceous Extinction Scenario for a Catastrophe

All the biotic changes that occurred at the end of Cretaceous time, including the extinction of the dinosaurs, may be the result of a single terrestrial catastrophe. The Arctic spillover model, first proposed to explain the marine extinctions, would have caused a rapid and intense change in the eart...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Gartner, Stefan, McGuirk, James P.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 1979
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.206.4424.1272
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.206.4424.1272
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Summary:All the biotic changes that occurred at the end of Cretaceous time, including the extinction of the dinosaurs, may be the result of a single terrestrial catastrophe. The Arctic spillover model, first proposed to explain the marine extinctions, would have caused a rapid and intense change in the earth's climate including a lowering of temperature and of precipitation. This change in climate may have triggered a series of ecological disasters that included the radical change in the distribution of vegetation on the earth as well as the extinction of the dinosaurs.