Cretaceous climate

Huber B. T., Hodell D., and Hamilton C. (1995) Middle-Eate Cretaceous climate of the southern high Eatitudes—stable isotopic evidence for minimal equator-to-pole thermal gradients. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 107, 1164-1191. 

Between 80 Ma and 50 Ma, the Namib rocks were eroded to a smooth peneplain (the Namib Unconformity). Namib Group Tertiary and Quaternary sedimentary debris was deposited in east-west to southwest trending paleochannels incised into Karibib marbles and schists on that Cretaceous age unconformity. From mid Tertiary to present, the central Namib region has maintained profoundly arid climatic conditions for the last 50 or more million years. Uplift initiated the post African erosion surface that filled valleys and channels with poorly sorted angular... 

Miller EL, Cans PB (1989) Cretaceous crustal structure and metamorphism in the hinterland of the Sevier thrust belt, western U.S. Cordillera. Geology 17 59-62 Molnar P (1988) Continental tectonics in the aftermath of plate tectonics. Nature 335 131-137 Molnar P, England P (1990) Late Cenozoic uplift of mountain-ranges and global climate change - chicken or egg. Nature 346 29-34... 

Bailey IW, Sinnott EW (1915) A botanical index of Cretaceous and Tertiary climates. Science 41 831-834 Bailey IW, Sinnott EW (1916) The climatic distribution of certain types of angiosperm leaves. Am J Bot 3 24-39... 

Wallmann K. (2001b) Controls on the Cretaceous and Cenozoic evolution of seawater composition, atmospheric CO2 and climate. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 65, 3005-3025. 

Mack G. H. (1992) Paleosols as an indicator of climate change at the Early-Late Cretaceous boundary, southwestern New Mexico. J. Sedim. Petrol. 62, 484-494. 

Davis C., Pratt L. M., Sliter W. V., Mompart L., and Murat B. (1999) Eactors influencing organic carbon and trace metal accumulation in the Upper Cretaceous La Luna Eormation of the western Maracaibo Basin, Venezuela. In Evolution of the Cretaceous Ocean-Climate System. Geological Society of America Special Paper 332 (eds. E. Barrera and C. Johnson). Geological Society of America, Boulder, pp. 203 -230. 

Herbert T. D. and Fischer A. G. (1986) Milankovitch climatic origin of mid-Cretaceous black shale rhythms in central Italy. Nature 321, 739-743. 

Pope K. O., Baines K. H., Ocampo A. C., and Ivanov B. A. (1997) Energy, volatile production, and climatic effects of the Chicxulub Cretaceous/Tertiary impact. J. Geophys. Res. 102, 21645-21664. 

Perhaps the best known of the mass extinctions is that associated with the demise of the dinosaurs at the Cretaceous—Tertiary boundary, which has been attributed to a meteorite impact (Alvarez et al. 1980 Kruge et al. 1994 Skelton et al. 2003), although natural climate change may also have been a factor. Planktonic organisms (particularly foraminiferans, calcareous phytoplankton and radiolarians) were also severely affected. On land, trees seem to have been devastated, with the recovery period marked by the proliferation of ferns. The pollen record is dominated by fern spores, and hence known as the fern spike, which is observed... 

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