Darkness and body size shaped end-Cretaceous marine extinction patterns

The Chicxulub asteroid impact at the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary (66 Ma) is thought to have caused the extinction of around 75% of species in the fossil record by triggering catastrophic environmental changes1. However, despite decades of research, the mechanisms linking the environmental changes to the selective extinction patterns observed in the marine fossil record remain unresolved.