Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 14 December 1979:
Vol. 206. no. 4424, pp. 1272 - 1276
DOI: 10.1126/science.206.4424.1272
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Terminal Cretaceous Extinction Scenario for a Catastrophe

Stefan Gartner 1 and James P. McGuirk 2

1 Associate professor of geological oceanography in the Department of Oceanography at Texas A & M University, College Station 77843
2 Assistant professor of meteorology in the Department of Meteorology at Texas A & M University

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.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Jurassic to Paleogene: Part 2 Paleogene geochronology and chronostratigraphy.
W. A. Berggren, D. V. Kent, and J. J. Flynn (1985)
Geological Society, London, Memoirs 10, 141-195
   Abstract »    PDF »
A Major Meteorite Impact on the Earth 65 Million Years Ago: Evidence from the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Clay.
R. Ganapathy and R. GANAPATHY (1980)
Science 209, 921-923
   Abstract »    PDF »
Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction.
L. W. Alvarez, L. W. Alvarez, W. Alvarez, F. Asaro, and H. V. Michel (1980)
Science 208, 1095-1108
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)