Abstract
The western interior of North America has the only known non-marine sections that contain the iridium-rich clay interpreted as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary1–7. Because vegetation and climate can be directly inferred from physiognomy of leaves8–15 and because leaf species typically represent low taxonomic categories, studies of leaf floras in these sections provide data on the effects of a terminal Cretaceous event on the land flora, vegetation and climate. A previous study based on detailed sampling of leaves and their dispersed cuticle16 in the Raton Basin provides a framework for interpretation of other leaf sequences over 20 degrees of latitude. We conclude that at the boundary there were: (1) high levels of extinction in the south and low levels in the north; (2) major ecological disruption followed by long-term vegetational changes that mimicked normal ecological succession; (3) a major increase in precipitation; and (4) a brief, low-temperature excursion, which supports models of an ‘impact winter’
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Wolfe, J., Upchurch, G. Vegetation, climatic and floral changes at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Nature 324, 148–152 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1038/324148a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/324148a0
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