IFL SCIENCE - One of the most extraordinary things about the impact of an asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago is not what died, but what survived. A new study found that one order of marine algae made it through by changing its source of energy, feeding on other life forms instead of harvesting sunlight. In the process, they greatly sped up the recovery of oceanic ecosystems.
In the Cretaceous, as today, photosynthetic algae formed the base of the open ocean's food webs. When the asteroid struck, causing the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event, or K/PG, the world became shrouded in darkness from soot cutting off access to sunlight.
"If you remove algae, which form the base of the food chain, everything else should die. We wanted to know how Earth's oceans avoided that fate, and how our modern marine ecosystem re-evolved after such a catastrophe." Professor Andrew Ridgwell of the University of California, Riverside said in a statement.