Biotic selectivity during the K/T and Late Ordovician extinction events
Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
1-1-1996
Abstract
The differing environmental effects of a glaciation and an impact event are reflected in significantly differing ecologic responses during the Late Ordovician and Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) mass extinctions. During the Late Ordovician glaciation most biotic changes were associated with an intensifying climatic gradient and glacioeustatic sea-level changes. During the K/T event most biotic changes were related to a short-term loss of primary productivity, consistent with a loss of sunlight and other ancillary effects of an impact. Animals in food chains that required a supply of food derived from photosynthesis suffered the greatest extinction during the K/T event. Many K/T survivors may have been buffered from the loss of primary productivity by feeding on detritus or being starvation resistant. The marked differences in ecological patterns between the two events affirms a fundamental difference in the mechanisms of extinction.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Special Paper of the Geological Society of America
Volume
307
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Sheehan, Peter M., Patricia J. Coorough, and David E. Fastovsky. "Biotic selectivity during the K/T and Late Ordovician extinction events." Special Paper of the Geological Society of America 307, (1996). doi: 10.1130/0-8137-2307-8.477.