Mammals and the Cretaceous-Tertiary
Mass Extinction
John Hunter (Department
of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University at Newark,
Newark, Ohio, USA)
22 May 2012
There are 3 groups of mammals today:
monotremes, marsupials, and placentals.
The monotremes are the duck-billed
platypus and the echidna. They were
widespread across Gondwana in the past.
They are now restricted to Australasia.
Marsupials are in Australasia and in
North America today.
There are 20 or so orders of placental
mammals, living and extinct.
Placentals include primates, which turn
out to be related to bats and flying lemurs.
Placentals also include the ungulates -
the hoofed mammals. The ungulates are an
artificial group - they consist of 3 separate groups, actually.
Whales turn out to be in the
Artiodactyla.
Mammals have been around since the Late
Triassic. A Middle Triassic busted-up
mammal braincase has been found in southwestern USA. Well-preserved mammal fossils start in the
Late Triassic.
Mammals diversify after the Cretaceous.
Modern placental orders go to near the
base of the Paleocene.
Marsupials and monotremes do go into the
Cretaceous.
Early mammals include:
Morganucodonts (Late
Triassic to Early Jurassic) - they are stem mammals. They have teeth with cusps that slide past
each other. These mammals were likely
insectivores (insect eaters).
Docodonts (Late
Triassic-Late Jurassic) - they have broad, crushing teeth and were likely
frugivores (fruit eaters). Their bodies
ranged from small & shrew-like to beaver-sized.
Australosphenids (stem monotremes) - they are
known from across Gondwana - Australia, Madagascar, South America.
Eutriconodonts
(Jurassic-Cretaceous) - bigger & badder mammals, up to ~possum-sized.
Multituberculates
(Jurassic-Eocene) - “rodents” of the Mesozoic, although they wouldn’t be
mistaken for living rodents. These
mammals had cheek teeth with cusps in multiple rows, like a modern rodent molar. Multituberculate mammals had
splayed-out-to-the-side limbs. They
could reverse their hind feet to hang from tress, like squirrels today.
Stem eutherians
(Jurassic-Cretaceous)
Mammals in the Mesozoic were not
ecologically dominant - they were small-bodied, nocturnal, and had a small
biomass compared with the archosaurs/dinosaurs.
After the Cretaceous-Tertiary
extinction, there was a survivorship period in the mammals.
Survivors of the extinction included
marsupials (they were in & are still in North America) and
multituberculates. The multituberculate
mammals persisted until the Eocene, when rodents migrated into North America
from Asia. The rodents probably
outcompeted the multituberculates.
Mammals diversified in the
Paleogene-Neogene.
The Cretaceous-Tertiary transition had
the greatest number of originations per unit species and the greatest number of
extinctions per unit species - lots of turnover.
Mammal body sizes increased through
time. The largest single increase
occurred at the Cretaceous-Tertiary.
After that, there was continued increase in mammal body sizes through
the Cenozoic.
See Schulte et al. (2010) - Science 327(1214).
There was a large impact in the Gulf of
Mexico, at the Yucatan Peninsula, at 65.5 million years ago - now the Chicxulub
Impact Crater.
The timing of the impact corresponds
with extinction of Cretaceous-only species of plants and animals, and
corresponds with a sudden spike in iridium (Ir) in Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary
sediments, and also corresponds with a d13C excursion.
The iridium spike and extinction event
also correspond with periods of volcanism in India - the Deccan Traps. Imagine an area the size of Texas suddenly
being filled with lava, with lots of poison gases being released. There were multiple episodes of Deccan Traps
volcanism - not all of them correspond with the extinction horizon.
Deccan Traps volcanism could have caused
the Cretaceous-Tertiay mass extinction, some say.
Others say Deccan Traps volcanism did
not cause the mass extinction.
Close to Chicxulub, boundary sections
have dozens of meters thick tsunami deposits - very coarse grained sediments -
formed quickly and dewatered quickly.
Far away from Chicxulub, for example at
Agost, Spain, the boundary section is quite thin.
See Archibald et al. (2010) - Science 328 (21 May 2010). This paper says that the Cretaceous-Tertiary
mass extinction had multiple causes - impact + volcanism + marine
regression + climate change.
Early Paleocene first appearances of
mammals include Purgatorius
(Plesiadapiformes) - a primate that possibly goes into the Cretaceous (based on
one tooth in a probably-contaminated fossil washing screen) - and Protungulatum (Condylarthra) - now known
in the Cretaceous.
John Hunter does mammal fossil field
work in southwestern North Dakota, in the Williston Basin.
The area has Paleocene- and
Cretaceous-aged sedimentary rocks. The
contact in the area potentially has Cretaceous-Tertiary fossil records. The area is mostly rangelands/grasslands. It’s usually only the river valleys that have
adequate rock exposures, such as along the Yellowstone River and the Little
Missouri River, etc. Going north in this
field area, one encounters younger sites.
Going south in this field area, one encounters older sites.
The area has the Hell Creek Formation
(upper Upper Cretaceous) - it has dinosaurs + lots of mammal sites. Above that is the Fort Union Group
(Paleocene) - its has lots of mammal sites.
Marine rocks occur below the Hell Creek
Fm. Marine rocks also come in from the
east during the Paleocene - there’s a regression to Hudson Bay in the Middle
Paleocene.
In the field, the Hell Creek Fm.
outcrops are drab grays. Above that, the
Fort Union Group outcrops have tans + grays.
The Pioneer Trails Region Museum in
Bowman, North Dakota has a paleontology curator, Dean Pearson. John Hunter works with him, plus Joe Hartman
(works on invertebrate fossils), Dan Peppe (works on fossil plants &
paleomagnetic analysis), Antoine Bercovici (works on fossil pollen), and
others.
The asteroid layer is a tonstein at the
Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary in some sections - iridium has been
identified in these sections. A good K-T
section occurs at Mud Buttes, North Dakota - it has shocked quartz + a pollen
change + an iridium spike + spherules.
Sandstone channels can cut out parts of
these sections, including the K-T transition.
So, the K-T asteroid layer is not found everywhere.
Mammal fossils: mostly
isolated teeth + jaw fragments.
See Hunter (1999) - North Dakota Academy of Science.
See Pearson et al. (2002) - Geological Society of America Special Paper
361.
There is very little ecological change
in Hell Creek Formation fossils through time.
There is no evidence of dinosaurs (or other groups) declining.
At one locality, <1 meter above the
K-T boundary, lenses of sediments have the earliest mammals and plants
recovered from the post-Cretaceous - these are “day after” biotas. They are the closest-to-the-Cretaceous biotas
of Paleocene age identified so far.
The Hell Creek Fm.-Fort Union Group
contact is arbitrary - it’s placed at a mappable coal bed. This is somewhat correlative with the Z
Coal. “Z Coal” is a term used in eastern
Montana - the coal bed splits and joins.
The formation contact (= coal bed) is within 1 to 0.5 meters of the iridium
spike. So, the “Z Coal” and the iridium
spike are pretty close.
Bercovici et al. (2009) - Cretaceous Research.
Floras have been recovered in these
close-to-the-Cretaceous sands.
The fossil record looked at just above
the K-T is environmentally sensitive.
Wilkening locality - 5341 fossil
vertebrate specimens were recovered (mostly fish, but some mammals, too). The fossils were retrieved by
screening/sieving. A freshwater ponding
event occurred after K-T at this locality.
Found a new species of Mesodma,
a multituberculate mammal. Got archaic
placental mammals and archaic ungulates.
The site is dominated by one species of multituberculate - Mesodma.
This animal was 80% of the mammal fauna at the Wilkening locality.
Seeing a surge in multituberculate
mammals in the transitional period between the Late Cretaceous and the Early
Paleocene. The multituberculates were an
opportunistic group following the K-T extinction event. Also seeing a fern spore spike just above
K-T. This is the first time a spike in
mammals has been found after the K-T.
At other sites, reports of increased
numbers of mammals after K-T were dubious - there was often evidence of
reworking - hundreds or thousands of years of time may have been compressed,
including through the boundary. This
will disproportionately represent forms that go extinct.
The Wilkening locality is the first confident
occurrence of a multituberculate mammal site after K-T.
Also looked at Merle’s Mecca locality -
dates to ~100,000 years after K-T (= Eary Paleocene). It is more diverse that the Wilkening
locality, in terms of mammal fossils.
The mammals at Merle’s Mecca are also more derived.