ABSTRACT The Cretaceous-Paleocene (K/P) boundary intervals are rarely preserved in successions of shallow-water limestones. Here, we describe a shallow rocky shore on the active orogenic wedge of the eastern Alps (Austria) fringed by a carbonate platform that was largely cannibalized by erosion. We compared this succession with similar nearshore environments globally, as well as the deep sea, to gain a better understanding of the environmental response to the K/P boundary transition. In the eastern Alps, Cretaceous and Paleocene lithofacies across the K/P boundary transition are separated by a hardground that formed during subaerial exposure and that terminates Upper Maastrichtian limestone with planktic foraminiferal assemblages deposited at neritic depth during zone CF3 (ca. 66.500 Ma). Above the hardground, there are beachrocks with early Danian zone P1a(1) assemblages, which indicate the hardground spans about ~600 k.y. of nondeposition and/or erosion. During the early Danian, the marine transgressive fringe fluctuated between “shoreface to emersion” environments, depositing limestones rich in bryozoans, rhynchonellids, coralline algae, and rare planktic foraminifera along with abraded, bored, and/or encrusted clasts eroded from older rocks. Repeated short subaerial exposure is marked by vadose diagenesis and hardgrounds, including an ~1.5 m.y. interval between magnetochrons C29n to C28n and planktic foraminiferal zones P1b to P1c(2). Comparison with platform carbonate sequences from Croatia, Oman, Madagascar, Belize, and Guatemala, as well as nearshore siliciclastic environments of southern Tunisia, Texas, and Argentina, across the K/P boundary transition revealed surprisingly similar deposition and erosion patterns, with the latter correlative with sea-level falls and repeated subaerial exposure forming hardgrounds. Comparison with deep-sea depositional patterns revealed coeval but shorter intervals of erosion. This pattern shows a uniform response to the K/P boundary transition linked to climate and sea-level changes, whether in shallow nearshore or deep-sea environments, with climate change tied to Deccan volcanism in magnetochrons C29r-C29n.

Impact stratigraphy is an extremely useful correlation tool that makes use of unique events in Earth's history and places them within spatial and temporal contexts. The K-T boundary is a particularly apt example to test the limits of this method to resolve ongoing controversies over the age of the Chicxulub impact and whether this impact is indeed responsible for the K-T boundary mass extinction. Two impact markers, the Ir anomaly and the Chicxulub impact spherule deposits, are ideal because of their widespread presence. Evaluation of their stratigraphic occurrences reveals the potential and the complexities inherent in using these impact signals. For example, in the most expanded sedimentary sequences: (1) The K-T Ir anomaly never contains Chicxulub impact spherules, whereas the Chicxulub impact spherule layer never contains an Ir anomaly. (2) The separation of up to 9 m between the Ir anomaly and spherule layer cannot be explained by differential settling, tsunamis, or slumps. (3) The presence of multiple spherule layers with the same glass geochemistry as melt rock in the impact breccia of the Chicxulub crater indicates erosion and redeposition of the original spherule ejecta layer. (4) The stratigraphically oldest spherule layer is in undisturbed upper Maastrichtian sediments (zone CF1) in NE Mexico and Texas. (5) From central Mexico to Guatemala, Belize, Haiti, and Cuba, a major K-T hiatus is present and spherule deposits are reworked and redeposited in early Danian (zone P1a) sediments. (6) A second Ir anomaly of cosmic origin is present in the early Danian. This shows that although impact markers represent an instant in time, they are subject to the same geological forces as any other marker horizons—erosion, reworking, and redeposition—and must be used with caution and applied on a regional scale to avoid artifacts of redeposition. For the K-T transition, impact stratigraphy unequivocally indicates that the Chicxulub impact predates the K-T boundary, that the Ir anomaly at the K-T boundary is not related to the Chicxulub impact, and that environmental upheaval continued during the early Danian with possibly another smaller impact and volcanism.

The Caves Branch Cave System is unusual because it developed in highly brecciated, nonbedded Cretaceous limestone, it is one of the largest cave complexes in the tropics, and it has a hydrologic architecture that mimics constant hydrochemical “flushing events.” Its complex growth has assembled a multilevel 31 km network, which is the largest of 45 km of caves in the Caves Branch Valley of Belize that have been surveyed following exploration and cave diving since the late 1960s. The valley is a polje entrenched into a mature cockpit holokarst of 200 m relief. After initiation of high, small, isolated phreatic caves, perhaps 200,000 yr of development progressed vertically downward from massive phreatic chambers (one exceeds 300 m in length) to the present active conduit, which has both deep phreatic loops and low water-table gradients. The primary conduit of the Caves Branch Cave System exceeds 15 km in length and parallels the polje on the east. A series of hydraulically restricted cave channels pirate allogenic river water from the polje into the conduit, to mix with high-solute calcite-saturated discharge from the overlying karst. The discharge of sequential wet season storms overwhelms the river waters in the conduit, producing a rise in solute concentration, which then declines with each karst storm flow recession. The pirate river channels and holokarst inputs join from opposite sides of the same conduit at similar elevations, yet have distinctive morphologies. In the absence of bedding, these may be best explained by differences in clastic sediment load, which are more pronounced than differences in chemistry.