The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary cocktail; Chicxulub impact triggers margin collapse and extensive sediment gravity flows

A distinctive mixture of reworked microfossils, impact-derived materials, and lithic fragments occurs in sediments at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in the basinal Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. We have named this mixture the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary "cocktail." Lithologic and paleont...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geology (Boulder) 1998-04, Vol.26 (4), p.331-334
Main Authors: Bralower, Timothy J, Paull, Charles K, Leckie, R. Mark
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
algae
Atlantic Ocean
biostratigraphy
Caribbean Sea
Cenozoic
Chicxulub Crater
clastic sediments
Cretaceous
Deep Sea Drilling Project
deep-sea sedimentation
Foraminifera
Geology
gravity flows
Gulf of Mexico
impacts
Invertebrata
K-T boundary
Leg 10
Leg 15
Leg 165
Leg 77
lower Paleocene
marine sedimentation
marine sediments
Mesozoic
microfossils
nannofossils
North Atlantic
Ocean Drilling Program
Oceanography
Paleocene
Paleogene
Plantae
Protista
reworking
sedimentation
Sediments
SEM data
spherules
stratigraphic boundary
Stratigraphy
Tertiary
unconformities
Upper Cretaceous
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Summary:A distinctive mixture of reworked microfossils, impact-derived materials, and lithic fragments occurs in sediments at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in the basinal Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. We have named this mixture the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary "cocktail." Lithologic and paleontologic evidence suggests that the cocktail was deposited by giant sediment gravity flows, apparently triggered by the collapse of continental margins around the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Chicxulub impact. As most microfossils in the gravity-flow units are reworked, biostratigraphy provides only maximum ages. Recognition of the cocktail is a reliable way to identify Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary deposits in the basinal Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.
ISSN:0091-7613
1943-2682
DOI:10.1130/0091-7613(1998)026<0331:TCTBCC>2.3.CO;2