Researchers have found that new species may have evolved surprisingly quickly after the asteroid impact that wiped out the Nonabia dinosaur.
New species of plankton may have emerged less than 2,000 years after the Chicxulub impact, which occurred about 66 million years ago, further fueling debate about how quickly new species emerged after the impact. This suggests that life recovered much more quickly than scientists previously thought, researchers report in a study published in the journal Geology on January 21.
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After the 8-mile-wide asteroid crashed into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, dust and soot from the impact temporarily blocked the sun. Cold and dark conditions continued for about 10 years, and about 75% of the plants and animals became extinct.
Based on estimates of how quickly sediment accumulated in the oceans and when fossils of new plankton species such as Parvulargoglobigerina eugbina began to appear, many experts believe it took about 30,000 years for the first new species to appear.
However, this estimate assumes that marine sediment accumulated at a constant rate over that period. Although common in marine environments, this was not always the case after the Chicxlav impact.
In the new study, researchers focused on another marker: helium-3. This isotope falls to Earth at a constant rate along with interplanetary dust. By measuring helium-3 throughout a sediment layer, scientists can tell how long it took for that layer to form. For this study, the researchers used previously collected helium-3 measurements from six sites to calculate when new fossil species would arrive.
Based on this analysis, the researchers found that P. eugbina emerged an average of 6,400 years after the impact at these six sites. At some sites, the new calibration results suggest that other species may have emerged even earlier, less than 2,000 years after the asteroid impact. Research shows that 10 to 20 species of plankton appeared within about 11,000 years, but there is still debate over which fossils count as separate species.
“The speed of recovery shows how resilient life is,” study co-author Timothy Bralower, a geoscientist at Pennsylvania State University, said in a statement. “It’s truly amazing how complex life can return within the geological pulse.”
It typically takes millions of years for new species to develop, but the process can be accelerated during periods of stress, such as after an asteroid impact.
This recovery could help scientists learn how quickly new species arise in response to human influence. “Given the threat of human-induced habitat destruction, this could also be reassuring for the resilience of extant species,” Bralower added.
Lowery, C. M., Bralower, T. J., Farley, K., and Leckie, R. M. (2026). New species evolved within a few thousand years after the Chicxulub impact. Geology. https://doi.org/10.1130/g53313.1
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