Benthic Foraminifera, Food Supply, and Carbonate Saturation Across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene Boundary: Southern Ocean Site 690

摘要: The specific mechanisms causing extinction and faunal turnover after the impact of an asteroid at Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K–Pg) boundary, palaeogeographical variability biotic response, are not well understood. In order to evaluate causes compare deep-sea benthic foraminifera high southern latitudes with that globally distributed sites, we analysed foraminiferal assemblages Southern Ocean ODP Site 690 on Maud Rise, Antarctica. Proxies for export productivity species composition indicate food supply seafloor did change significantly, but diversity evenness decreased several hundred thousand years. This transient assemblage may have been caused by pelagic calcifiers, either directly because changed nature organic flux, or indirectly, sharp decline in carbonate flux floor oversaturation deep waters, leading increased abundance large, thick-walled heavily calcified species.