Chemostratigraphy across the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary and a Critical Assessment of the Iridium Anomaly

Abstract

The elevated concentration of iridium-one of the platinum-group elements (PGE)-at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is still the most generally accepted evidence that a large bolide struck the earth at the time of the end-Cretaceous mass extinctions. New chemostratigraphic data for cross-boundary sections from both hemispheres are not easily explained in terms of such an impact event, for example the observation that the PGE patterns show marked differences between the hemispheres. The new constraints indicate that models of mantle-derived PGE should be seriously considered, and that PGE anomalies might not be as useful as previously thought as unambiguous identifiers of large impact events in the earth's history.