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Published online on January 10, 2003, 10.1073/pnas.0234701100
PNAS | January 21, 2003 | vol. 100 | no. 2 | 599-604


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Evolution
 Correlated terrestrial and marine evidence for global climate changes before mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary

Peter Wilf*,dagger ,Dagger ,§, Kirk R. JohnsonDagger ,, and Brian T. HuberDagger ,||

* Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802; dagger  Museum of Paleontology and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109;  Department of Earth Sciences, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Denver, CO 80205; and || Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560

Edited by W. A. Berggren, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, and approved November 26, 2002 (received for review August 5, 2002)

Terrestrial climates near the time of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction are poorly known, limiting understanding of environmentally driven changes in biodiversity that occurred before bolide impact. We estimate paleotemperatures for the last approx 1.1 million years of the Cretaceous (approx 66.6-65.5 million years ago, Ma) by using fossil plants from North Dakota and employ paleomagnetic stratigraphy to correlate the results to foraminiferal paleoclimatic data from four middle- and high-latitude sites. Both plants and foraminifera indicate warming near 66.0 Ma, a warming peak from approx 65.8 to 65.6 Ma, and cooling near 65.6 Ma, suggesting that these were global climate shifts. The warming peak coincides with the immigration of a thermophilic flora, maximum plant diversity, and the poleward range expansion of thermophilic foraminifera. Plant data indicate the continuation of relatively cool temperatures across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary; there is no indication of a major warming immediately after the boundary as previously reported. Our temperature proxies correspond well with recent pCO2 data from paleosol carbonate, suggesting a coupling of pCO2 and temperature. To the extent that biodiversity is correlated with temperature, estimates of the severity of end-Cretaceous extinctions that are based on occurrence data from the warming peak are probably inflated, as we illustrate for North Dakota plants. However, our analysis of climate and facies considerations shows that the effects of bolide impact should be regarded as the most significant contributor to these plant extinctions.

Dagger P.W., K.R.J., and B.T.H. contributed equally to this work.

§ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: pwilf{at}geosc.psu.edu.

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0234701100
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