The response of benthic foraminifera to the K–Pg boundary biotic crisis at Elles (northwestern Tunisia)

The high-resolution quantitative study of benthic foraminifera from the Elles section (NW Tunisia) that contains one of the most complete Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary transition and spans about 357 kyr provides detailed data on the palaeoenvironmental turnover across the K–Pg boundary. Benthic foraminifera indicate outer neritic-uppermost bathyal depths without perceivable bathymetrical changes throughout. Uppermost Maastrichtian assemblages are well preserved and highly diversified, indicating stable environment and mesotrophic to weakly eutrophic conditions during the latest Cretaceous. Benthic foraminifera underwent a major faunal turnover in coincidence with the K–Pg boundary, where a dramatic and sudden decrease in the percentage of both infaunal morphogroups and buliminids, as well as in diversity, heterogeneity, and genus and species richness of the assemblages, are recorded indicating overall oligotrophic conditions. Benthic foraminifera do not show significant extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, with only about 3% of the species clearly becoming extinct together with the temporary disappearance of some taxa. A stepped pattern of faunal recovery and restructuring is recognizable during the lowermost Danian reflecting the gradual restabilization of the environmental conditions after the K–Pg boundary event. The nature and the abundance of food supply to the sea floor conditioned the faunal turnover in the earliest Paleogene which reflects not only a sudden collapse of the food web due to the extinction of calcareous primary producers, but also a major, rapid change in composition and abundance of food supply just after the K–Pg boundary. Short-term blooms of some opportunistic species within the G. cretacea Zone and the lowermost part of the Ps. pseudobulloides Zone would reflect instability in the benthic assemblages that might be related to the transfer to the sea floor of food supply not easily used by the benthos through short-term, large blooms or changes in abundance of opportunistic, various phytoplankton groups. The major environmental instability at the sea floor that just follows the K–Pg boundary event may have been thus related to changes in the phytoplankton composition and abundance and would have taken place over a period of about 25 kyr. Benthic foraminiferal assemblages appear to stabilize in the lowermost part of Zone Ps. pseudobulloides (∼ 65 kyr after the K–Pg boundary event). The sea floor ecosystem, at least at outer neritic-uppermost bathyal depths, may have recovered over a considerably shorter period than commonly suggested, even if the food delivery to the sea floor had not fully recovered the pre-K–Pg levels as indicated by the lower percentages of infaunal morphogroups and buliminids. This would be also in agreement with the rapid recovery of terrestrial ecosystems following the biotic crisis at the K–Pg boundary. The drastic change of benthic foraminiferal assemblages coincident with the K–Pg boundary at Elles and their staggered reorganization during the lowermost Paleogene are largely compatible with the catastrophic effects of a huge asteroid impact on Earth at the K–Pg boundary that severely destabilized the oceanic phytoplankton-based food web.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography