The mystery behind how deep sea creatures managed to survive the catastrophic asteroid strike which is wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago which is declared by scientists after a study. They also say like dinosaurs some giant marine reptiles, invertebrates and microscopic organisms became extinct after the asteroid impact. This happened in an immense upheaval of the world`s oceans to the deep sea creatures managed to survive.
Regarding this, a team led by researchers from Cardiff University in the UK provides strong evidence that some forms of algae and bacteria were actually living aftermath of the asteroid disaster that they acted as a constant sinking slow trickle of food for creatures near the seafloor.
Researchers were able to find that the food supply in the ocean was fully restored around 1.7m years after asteroid strike, which is almost half the original showing that marine food chains bounced back quicker than original.
“The global catastrophe that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs also devastated ocean ecosystems. Giant marine reptiles met their end as did various types of invertebrates such as the iconic ammonites,” said Heather Birch, a Cardiff University Ph.D., who led the study.
“Our results show that despite a wave of massive and virtually instantaneous extinctions among the plankton, some types of photosynthesising organisms, such as algae and bacteria, were living in the aftermath of the asteroid strike. This provided a slow trickle of food for organisms living near ocean floor which enabled them to survive the mass extinction, answering one of the outstanding questions that still remained regarding this period of history,” said Birch.
“Even so, it took almost two million years before the deep sea food supply was fully restored as new species evolved to occupy ecological niches vacated by extinct forms,” Birch said.