Abstract
During the Late Cretaceous, marine organisms experienced significant changes in their biodiversity. These diversity changes were influenced, particularly, by the Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 near the Cenomanian/Turonian boundary (93.6 Ma). Here, stratigraphic ranges of 80 marine macroinvertebrate genera (cephalopods, brachiopods, gastropods, corals, and echinoids) were employed to assess the Late Cretaceous biodiversity dynamics in the Eastern Caucasus, which covered a large region located in the northern Neo-Tethys Ocean. Our results outline three prominent diversity minima, which occurred in the late Cenomanian-late Turonian, the early Santonian-late Campanian, and the late Maastrichtian. Probably, the latter two were just local. Despite of some differences in trends between the regional and global marine biodiversity dynamics, the late Cenomanian-late Turonian biotic crisis appeared both on the regional and global scales and was probably a long-term consequence of the Oceanic Anoxic Event 2. Oxygen depletion and eustaticallydriven shoreline shifts are considered as plausible causes of the observed biodiversity dynamics.
Highlights
The global marine biodiversity changed rapidly during the Late Cretaceous (PURDY 2008)
An analysis of marine biodiversity dynamics at the level of species is always informative, the present study focuses on genera because of two main reasons
A biotic radiation took place in the early Maastrichtian to be followed by a decline in the late Maastrichtian
Summary
The global marine biodiversity changed rapidly during the Late Cretaceous (PURDY 2008). Intense turnovers and some extinctions among the entire range of marine biota (e.g., SEPKOSKI 1986; HALLAM & WIGNALL 1997, 1999; HARRIES & LITTLE 1999; WIGNALL 2001; LECKIE et al 2002; KELLER 2008), an oceanic anoxic event Late Cretaceous marine biodiversity dynamics in the Eastern Caucasus, northern Neo-Tethys Ocean. While more data is available from Mediterranean Europe (e.g., LAMOLDA & PERYT 1995; PERYT & LAMOLDA 1996; COCCIONI & LUCIANI 2005), England (e.g., JARVIS et al 1988a,b; PAUL et al 1999; GALE et al 2005), and Japan (TOSHIMITSU & HIRANO 2000; TAKAHASHI 2005), palaeontological records of many other potentially important regions are still inadequately explored
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