A seismically induced onshore surge deposit at the KPg boundary, North Dakota

Abstract

Significance The Chicxulub impact played a crucial role in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction. However the earliest postimpact effects, critical to fully decode the profound influence on Earth’s biota, are poorly understood due to a lack of high-temporal-resolution contemporaneous deposits. The Tanis site, which preserves a rapidly deposited, ejecta-bearing bed in the Hell Creek Formation, helps to resolve that long-standing deficit. Emplaced immediately (minutes to hours) after impact, Tanis provides a postimpact “snapshot,” including ejecta accretion and faunal mass death, advancing our understanding of the immediate effects of the Chicxulub impact. Moreover, we demonstrate that the depositional event, calculated to have coincided with the arrival of seismic waves from Chicxulub, likely resulted from a seismically coupled local seiche.