RE: K-T Theories

[Tim Madden <TMADDEN@medicode.mhs.compuserve.com>]

Michael J. Styzen write:
> What I'm saying is that from the looks of the evidence that the
> phytoplankton was just about exterminated at the K/T boundary.  Even
> those lucky survivors who made it through did not have much of a
> population for a while.  This makes this a problem that reaches way
> beyond the food pyramid.  As I stated before I think there is a general
> lack of appreciation of how much of the photosynthetic biomass of the
> world is floating around in the ocean.  In my opinion every rain
> forrest could be expunged from the face of the earth (no, I'm not
> advocating this) and it would be a minor inconveinence.  But if you
> reduced the plankton to almost zero we'd all be gasping for breath in
> no time.  This is only just considering oxygen.  Look at the Cliffs of
> Dover or the Austin Chalk (both just about 100% nannofossil skelital
> material) All that calcium carbonate was made of billions of tons of
> carbon dioxide removed from the Cretaceous atmosphere daily.  As I
> stated before there are probably some other geochem cycles that are
> critically affected by the phytoplankton on a day to day basis.
> Shutting this off over any period of time could have a major impact on
> the world wide ecosystem whatever the original cause of the shut off.

It would explain why all large creatures died out. But why would
ALL of Dinosauria die out? Why not all of Mammalia and Reptilia? Were
there no dinosaurs smaller than the largest surviving mammal at that
time?