General Question

luigirovatti's avatar

Is the following information I gathered about the Cretaceous extinction accurate?

Asked by luigirovatti (2950points) January 15th, 2022

Now, about the Cretaceous mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Virtually no large land animals survived. Plants were also greatly affected while tropical marine life was decimated. Global temperature was 6 to 14°C warmer than present with sea levels over 300 meters higher than current levels. At this time, the oceans flooded up to 40% of the continents. Death was everywhere. This event is marked by a boundary called the K-T Layer or the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. I know it should be C-T Layer, but I am not a scientist and didn’t name the thing.  Actually, the “K” is short for kreide, the German word for chalk because vast amounts of chalk were formed during the end of the Cretaceous. This K-T layer thing has been found in both marine and terrestrial sediments and at numerous boundary sites around the world. Many believe that a huge meteor hit near the Yucatan peninsula.

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3 Answers

JLoon's avatar

Generally yes.

The Yucatan asteroid impact was confirmed from sea bed core samples in early 2021 -
https://earthsky.org/earth/asteroid-dust-iridium-chicxulub-crater-dinosaur-extinction/

Patty_Melt's avatar

There are differing opinions regarding various points.

While there was a huge meteor event at about that time, there are also thoughts regarding volcanoes, and fluctuations in the environmental conditions several centuries before and after the meteor event.

Some believe that if not for the other occurrences, more species might have survived the meteor.

Thoughts of various plant and animal species present before the mass event vary with interpretation of data, and as new data surfaces.
So, depending on whose accounts you go by, yup, you have it right, probably.

flutherother's avatar

It seems accurate though it is now called the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary.

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