A maritime location reduced palynofloral turnover and extirpation across the end Cretaceous boundary interval on the west coast of Canada

Abstract

A well-preserved suite of ∼163 spore-pollen taxa from a recently discovered K/Pg interval within the maritime Oyster Bay Formation, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, reveals a pattern of floral turnover across the boundary event with local extirpations of ∼15 % of Cretaceous taxa. Along the margin of the eastern North Pacific, a shift occurred in near-coastal vegetation composition from uppermost Cretaceous diverse fern and bryophyte-dominated communities to Danian conifer-dominated forests with a fern understory. The ‘fern spore spike’ common in other K/Pg records was not detected within the sandstone to mudstone sequence. Spore-pollen assemblages preserved herein align with those of the Continental Margin floristic province. Palm pollen is noteworthy in the studied sections including Arecipites spp. (aff. Arecaceae), Spinizonocolpites spp. (aff. Nypa) and Pandaniidites typicus (aff. Pandanus) suggesting a warm, frost-free, sub-tropical climate prevailed across the K/Pg interval. The presence of numerous endemic spore-pollen taxa is indicative of geographic isolation from the North American Western Interior. Maritime climate buffering along the west coast of North America contributed to microrefugia permitting greater stability in terrestrial plant communities than in continental regions.