Paleocene-Eocene (P-E) Boundary Impact Disputed

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 19 12:48:31 EDT 2004

A recent paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters
disputes interpretations that argue that a major comet
impact caused global climatic changes, which coincides
with the Paleocene-Eocene (P-E) Boundary. Instead,
this
paper, Schmitz et al. (2004) concluded:

" The environmental perturbations at the Paleocene-
Eocene boundary appear to have been triggered by
basaltic volcanism, but any model for the detailed
causal relation remains speculative."

The paper is:

Schmitz, B., Peucker-Ehrenbrink, B., Heilmann-Clausen,

C., Aberg, G., Asaro, F., and Lee, C-T. A. 2004,
Basaltic explosive volcanism, but no comet impact,
at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary: high-resolution
chemical and isotopic records from Egypt, Spain and
Denmark. Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
vol. 225, no. 1-2, pp. 1-17 (30 August 2004)

Yours,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA