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Geochemical environmental changes and dinosaur extinction during the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/T) transition in the Nanxiong Basin, South China: Evidence from dinosaur eggshells

  • Articles / Geology
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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

The complex patterns of trace elements including Ir and isotope distributions in the three K/T sections of the Nanxiong Basin prove the existence of two environmental events in the latest Cretaceous and earliest Paleocene. The first geochemical environmental event occurred at about 2 Ma prior to the K/T boundary interval, where the dinosaur diversity was hardly reduced, except that a number of pathological eggshells appeared. The second one was larger and occurred just at and near the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/T) boundary. The extinction of the dinosaurs spread out within 250 ka with major extinction beginning at the boundary interval. This is even later than their extinction in Montana, North America and in India. The cause of the dinosaur extinction may be the result of a complex multiple events brought about by the coincidence of global environment change marked by multiple Ir and δ18O anomalies, and environmental poisoning characterized by other trace elements derived from the local source. Successive short- and long-term conditions of geochemically induced environmental stress negatively affected the reproductive process and thus contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Evolutionary Systematics of Vertebrates, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China

    ZiKui Zhao & FuCheng Zhang

  2. Institute of High Energy Physics and Laboratory of Nuclear Analytical Techniques, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100080, China

    XueYing Mao, ZhiFang Chai & GaoChuang Yang

  3. Institute of Geology, State Seismological Bureau, Beijing, 100029, China

    Zheng Yan

Authors
  1. ZiKui Zhao
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  2. XueYing Mao
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Correspondence to ZiKui Zhao.

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Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 40472018) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 21039751)

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Zhao, Z., Mao, X., Chai, Z. et al. Geochemical environmental changes and dinosaur extinction during the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/T) transition in the Nanxiong Basin, South China: Evidence from dinosaur eggshells. Chin. Sci. Bull. 54, 806–815 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-008-0565-1

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