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Survival, but…! New Tales of ‘Dead Clade Walking’ from Austral and Boreal Post-K–T Assemblages

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Earth and Life

Part of the book series: International Year of Planet Earth ((IYPE))

Abstract

Our knowledge of postmass extinction biotic trajectories is at the mercy of available data and detailed research on the governing factors of differential extinction/survivorship patterns of fossil biotas. Some taxa managed—barely—to survive major extinction events, but only for the short-term, becoming extinct at variable times in the following geologic stage, having succumbed to myriad natural forces generated by severe paleoenvironmental perturbations. These ‘Dead Clade Walking’ (DCW) organisms should be included in investigations on the resultant effects of the extinction bottleneck and subsequent rebound phase(s). Significantly, even though the ‘big five’ mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic are distinguished primarily by their overwhelming intensities, their magnitudes—and thus importance for shaping the present-day biosphere—have been systematically underestimated, when time frames including immediate, post-apocalyptic DCW taxa are included in survivorship/extinction analyses. Our research from recent studies of Austral and Boreal invertebrates and vertebrates in relation to the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary provides alluring new evidence of the DCW phenomenon, including the short-term survivorship of ammonoid cephalopods and possible non-avian dinosaurs into the dawn of the Cenozoic.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the following for their support and assistance throughout this investigation: Draga Gelt and Ben Doherty (Monash University); Bill Zinsmeister (Purdue University); Ewan Fordyce (University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand); Chris Consoli (Geoscience Australia); Claus Heinberg (Roskilde, Denmark); John Jagt (Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht, the Netherlands). This research was funded by a Research Initiatives grant from Monash University to JDS, and support from the Geological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, and University of Western Australia, Perth, to EH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Palaeontology and Basin Studies Group, School of Geosciences, Monash University, Clayton, Vic, 3800, Australia

    Jeffrey D. Stilwell

  2. Centre for Evolutionary Research, Australian Museum, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Jeffrey D. Stilwell

  3. School of Earth and Geographical Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Eckart Håkansson

  4. Geological Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK–1350, Copenhagen K, Denmark

    Eckart Håkansson

Authors
  1. Jeffrey D. Stilwell
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  2. Eckart Håkansson
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Correspondence to Jeffrey D. Stilwell .

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  1. Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, 2109, Sydney, Australia

    John A. Talent

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Stilwell, J.D., Håkansson, E. (2012). Survival, but…! New Tales of ‘Dead Clade Walking’ from Austral and Boreal Post-K–T Assemblages. In: Talent, J.A. (eds) Earth and Life. International Year of Planet Earth. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3428-1_26

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