Rainfall patterns remained largely unaffected despite dramatic climate changes
It’s known that the primary cause of the mass extinction of dinosaurs, about 66 million years ago, was a meteorite impact. But the exact mechanisms that linked the meteorite impact to mass extinction remain unclear, though climactic changes are thought to have played a part.
To understand how the mass extinction and associated climate changes affected specific ecosystems, a team of McGill scientists has analyzed the microscopic remains of plants from this period, found in the sediment of rivers in southern Saskatchewan. In a recent article in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecologythey show that in this area, local plant communities and ecosystems experienced a long-term shift towards fewer aquatic plants and an increase in terrestrial plants, including trees such as birches and elms. They researchers speculate that this increase was due to the extinction of large plant-eating dinosaurs. The