After an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, ocean microbes helped life rebound

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https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/after-asteroid-wiped-out-dinosaurs-ocean-microbes-helped-life-rebound

Source: By Katherine Kornei, Science Magazine. 

Excerpt: The asteroid impact that killed most of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago also created conditions for ocean microbes to flourish, according to a new study. In microscopic rock crystals, researchers have found evidence that massive blooms of algae and photosynthetic bacteria covered the world’s oceans, providing food for larger marine creatures soon after the cataclysm. In 2016, researchers working in the Gulf of Mexico drilled into the Chicxulub crater, the scar left behind by the asteroid impact, buried under the sea floor. They found that sediments deposited immediately after the impact were rich in micrite, a calcium carbonate mineral. Calcium carbonate, common in limestone, precipitates in the world’s oceans: Corals and plankton build skeletons of it, microbes such as bacteria produce it, and it can even form directly from seawater.... 

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