Evolution after Chicxulub asteroid impact: Rapid response of life to end-cretaceous mass

by Geological Society of America, July 14, 2020 in ScienceDaily


The impact event that formed the Chicxulub crater (Yucatán Peninsula, México) caused the extinction of 75% of species on Earth 66 million years ago, including non-avian dinosaurs. One place that did not experience much extinction was the deep, as organisms living in the abyss made it through the mass extinction event with just some changes to community structure.

New evidence from International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 364 of trace fossils of burrowing organisms that lived in the seafloor of the Chicxulub Crater beginning a few years after the impact shows just how quick the recovery of the seafloor ecosystem was, with the establishment of a well-developed tiered community within  approximately 700,000 years after the event.