Organic carbon fluxes and ecological recovery from the cretaceous- tertiary mass extinction

Authors

Steven D'Hondt, University of Rhode Island
Percy Donaghay, University of Rhode Island
James C. Zachos, University of California, Santa Cruz
Danielle Luttenberg, University of Rhode Island
Matthias Lindinger

Document Type

Article

Date of Original Version

10-9-1998

Abstract

Differences between the carbon isotopic values of carbonates secreted by planktic and benthic organisms did not recover to stable preextinction levels for more than 3 million years after the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction. These decreased differences may have resulted from a smaller proportion of marine biological production sinking to deep water in the postextinction ocean. Under this hypothesis, marine production may have recovered shortly after the mass extinction, but the structure of the open-ocean ecosystem did not fully recover for more than 3 million years.

Publication Title, e.g., Journal

Science

Volume

282

Issue

5387

Citation/Publisher Attribution

D'Hondt, Steven, Percy Donaghay, James C. Zachos, Danielle Luttenberg, and Matthias Lindinger. "Organic carbon fluxes and ecological recovery from the cretaceous- tertiary mass extinction." Science 282, 5387 (1998). doi: 10.1126/science.282.5387.276.