Chixculub: rapid evolutionary recovery (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, September 16, 2020, 17:59 (1528 days ago) @ David Turell

Quick microbe recovery:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/after-asteroid-wiped-out-dinosaurs-ocean-microb...

"The asteroid impact that killed most of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago also created conditions for ocean microbes to flourish, according to a new study. In microscopic rock crystals, researchers have found evidence that massive blooms of algae and photosynthetic bacteria covered the world’s oceans, providing food for larger marine creatures soon after the cataclysm.

"In 2016, researchers working in the Gulf of Mexico drilled into the Chicxulub crater, the scar left behind by the asteroid impact, buried under the sea floor. They found that sediments deposited immediately after the impact were rich in micrite, a calcium carbonate mineral. Calcium carbonate, common in limestone, precipitates in the world’s oceans: Corals and plankton build skeletons of it, microbes such as bacteria produce it, and it can even form directly from seawater.

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"In addition to wiping out so much life on land, the impact decimated ocean ecosystems as well. Vaporized rock led to a buildup of sulfuric acid that rained down on oceans along with toxic metals like lead and mercury. More than 90% of marine phytoplankton went extinct, researchers have shown.

"Yet that destruction also paved the way for newcomers, says Julio Sepúlveda, a biogeochemist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who was not involved in the research. “If you wipe out an important group from an ecosystem, you have an empty ecological niche.”

Comment: Note the last quote. Wipe out an ecosystem and another replaces it. A balanced system continues.