252.2 – 199.6 MILLION: TRIASSIC

• • • 80% of species lost
    • Pangea supercontinent combines all major landmasses;
    • Panthalassa combines all oceans except Tethys;
    • Climate very hot and dry with huge deserts;
    • Archosaurs wildly diversify, becoming the crocodilian Crurotarsi, the flying Pterosaurs, and Dinosaurs;
    • Dinosaurs originated (around 230 million years ago) in South America,  Pangea;
    • Marine reptiles  flourish;
    • Gymnosperm trees (conifers, ginkos; cycads) thrive;
    • Turtles, modern amphibians, modern fish, modern corals and many modern insect groups appear;
    • the Manicouagan impact may possibly have triggered an earlier mass extinction at the Carnian/Norian boundary 227 Ma, in the Late Triassic.
    • Period ends in large extinction.

The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Ma (252.2 ± 0.5 to 201.3 ± 0.2) million years ago).

~214 Ma – LATE TRIASSIC (extinction at the Carnian/Norian boundary – 227 Ma)

80% of species lost — Conodont teeth 1 mm

Palaeontologists were baffled about the origin of these toothy fragments, mistaking them for bits of clams or sponges. But the discovery of an intact fossil in Scotland in the 1980s finally revealed their owner – a jawless eel-like vertebrate named the conodont which boasted this remarkable set of teeth lining its mouth and throat. They were one of the first structures built from hydroxyapatite, a calcium-rich mineral that remains  a key component of our own bones and teeth today.  Of all the great extinctions, the one that ended the Triassic is the most enigmatic. No clear cause has been found.

Scientists reported in the journal Nature today (March 13, 1998) that they had found evidence of a chain of five craters formed 214 million years ago that was likely due to pieces of a comet crashing into the Earth’s surface, similar to the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact on Jupiter in 1994. The craters no longer appear to be in a straight line due the shifting of the Earth’s continents due to plate tectonics. Two of the craters, Manicouagan and Saint Martin, are in Canada (Quebec and Manitoba, respectively). The other three craters are Rochechouart in Europe, Obolon in the Ukraine and Red Wing in Minnesota. The impacts appeared to occur at the Norian stage of the Triassic period, about six million years after a mass extinction that wiped out 80% of all the species on Earth, but the ages of all the craters are uncertain enough to include this extinction (from ScienceWeb Daily).

Abstract:

The 34-million-year (My) interval of the Late Triassic is marked by the formation of several large impact structures on Earth. Late Triassic impact events have been considered a factor in biotic extinction events in the Late Triassic (e.g., end-Triassic extinction event), but this scenario remains controversial because of a lack of stratigraphic records of ejecta deposits. Here, we report evidence for an impact event (platinum group elements anomaly with nickel-rich magnetite and microspherules) from the middle Norian (Upper Triassic) deep-sea sediment in Japan. This includes anomalously high abundances of iridium, up to 41.5 parts per billion (ppb), in the ejecta deposit, which suggests that the iridiumenriched ejecta layers of the Late Triassic may be found on a global scale. The ejecta deposit is constrained by microfossils that suggest correlation with the 215.5-Mya, 100-km-wide Manicouagan impact crater in Canada. Our analysis of radiolarians shows no evidence of a mass extinction event across the impact event horizon, and no contemporaneous faunal turnover is seen in other marine planktons. However, such an event has been reported among marine faunas and terrestrial tetrapods and floras in North America. We, therefore, suggest that the Manicouagan impact triggered the extinction of terrestrial and marine organisms near the impact site but not within the pelagic marine realm (Onoue, Tetsuji, October 2012).

Summary of impact structures in the Late Triassic.

Did the Manicouagan impact trigger end-of-Triassic mass extinction?

J. P. Hodych, G. R. Dunning
Abstract
We use U-Pb zircon dating to test whether the bolide impact that created the Manicouagan crater of Quebec also triggered mass extinction at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary. The age of the impact is provided by zircons from the impact melt rock on the crater floor; we show that the zircons yield a U-Pb age of 214 ±1 Ma. The age of the Triassic/Jurassic boundary is provided by zircons from the North Mountain Basalt of the Newark Supergroup of Nova Scotia; the zircons yield a U-Pb age of 202 ±1 Ma. This should be the age of the end-of-Triassic mass extinction that paleontology and sedimentation rates suggest occurred less than 1 m.y. before extrusion of the North Mountain Basalt. Although the Manicouagan impact could thus not have triggered the mass extinction at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary (impact likely having preceded extinction by 12 ±2 m.y.), the impact may possibly have triggered an earlier mass extinction at the Carnian/Norian boundary – 227Ma, in the Late Triassic. (Geology (1992)

The Triassic-Jurassic Extinction – Volcanic? 

The end-Triassic mass extinction, with more than 50% genus loss in both marine and continental realms, is one of the five periods of major biodiversity loss in Earth’s history and provides an eminent case history of global biosphere turnover. Massive volcanism through largescale flood basalt eruptions is the favoured terrestrial culprit. The end-Triassic is marked by Large Igneous Province (LIP) emplacement of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP). Deenen et al, 2009.

References

Boyle, D.R. et al, Geochemistry, geology, and isotopic (Sr, S, and B) composition of evaporites in the Lake St. Martin impact structure: New constraints on the age of melt rock formation,GEOCHEMISTRY GEOPHYSICS GEOSYSTEMS, VOL. 8, 2007.

M.H.L. Deenen, M. Ruhl, N.R. Bonis,W. Krijgsman, W.M. Kuerschner, M. Reitsma, M.J. van Bergen, A new chronology for the end-Triassic mass extinction. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 2009.

Donofrio, R.R., North American impact structures hold giant field potential. Oil and Gas Journal, 1998.

Donofrio, R.R.: Impact Craters: Implications for Basement Hydrocarbon Production. Journal of Petroleum Geology, 1981.

Grieve, R.A.F., Impact structures in Canada, Geological Association of Canada, no. 5, 2006.

Robertson, P.B., Grieve, R.A.F., Impact Structures in Canada: their recognition and characteristics. The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, February 1975.

Smith, R. Dark days of the Triassic: Lost world – Did a giant impact 200 million years ago trigger a mass extinction and pave the way for the dinosaurs? NATURE 17 Nov. Vol#479 2011.

Tetsuji Onouea, et al; Deep-sea record of impact apparently unrelated to mass extinction in the Late Triassic. Rutgers University/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, October 3, 2012

Poag C. W, Chesapeake Invader, 1999.

Earth Impact Database

201.3 Ma – TRIASSIC-JURASSIC EXTINCTION

The following impacts “may” be related to the Triassic–Jurassic Extinction:

The Triassic–Jurassic extinction event marks the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods, 201.3 million years ago, and is one of the major extinction events of the Phanerozoic eon, profoundly affecting life on land and in the oceans. In the seas a whole class (conodonts) and twenty percent of all marine families disappeared. On land, all large crurotarsans (non-dinosaurian archosaurs) other than crocodilians, some remaining therapsids, and many of the large amphibians were wiped out. At least half of the species now known to have been living on Earth at that time went extinct. This event vacated terrestrial ecological niches, allowing the dinosaurs to assume the dominant roles in the Jurassic period. This event happened in less than 10,000 years and occurred just before Pangaea started to break apart. In the area of Tübingen (Germany), a Triassic-Jurassic bonebed can be found, which is characteristic for this boundary. Statistical analysis of marine losses at this time suggests that the decrease in diversity was caused more by a decrease in speciation than by an increase in extinctions (Wikipedia).

Evidence for Impact: “Analysis of tetrapod footprints and skeletal material from more than 70 localities in eastern North America shows that large theropod dinosaurs appeared less than 10,000 years after the Triassic-Jurassic boundary and less than 30,000 years after the last Triassic taxa, synchronous with a terrestrial mass extinction. This extraordinary turnover is associated with an iridium anomaly (up to 285 parts per trillion, with an average maximum of 141 parts per trillion) and a fern spore spike, suggesting that a bolide impact was the cause. Eastern North American dinosaurian diversity reached a stable maximum less than 100,000 years after the boundary, marking the establishment of dinosaur-dominated communities that prevailed for the next 135 million years” (Olsen et al 2002).

P. E. Olsen, D. V. Kent, H.-D. Sues, C. Koeberl, H. Huber, A. Montanari, E. C. Rainforth, S. J. Fowell, M. J. Szajna, B. W. Hartline ASCENT OF DINOSAURS LINKED TO AN IRIDIUM ANOMALY AT THE TRIASSIC JURASSIC BOUNDARY Science, 17 May 2002

19. DINOSAUR  EVOLUTION AT THE END-TRIASSIC (Tr-J) vs END-CRETACEOUS (K-Pg) EXTINCTIONS

• • • INTRODUCTION
    • K-Pg & Tr-J GEOMORPHOMETRY COMPARISONS
      – IMPACT CRATERS
      – IMPACT EJECTA
      – IRIDIUM CONCENTRATIONS
      – VOLCANIC ACTIVITY
      – CLIMATE CHANGE
    • CONCLUSION
    • REFERENCES
      – PAPERS
      – CONTINENTAL DRIFT vs GEOLOGIC PERIODS
      – MANICOUAGAN and CHICXULUB CRATER DATA SUMMARY

– INTRODUCTION

The direct ancestors of the dinosaurs (early Archosaurs)  and mammal-like reptiles (Therapsids) originated within 10 million years of each other within the Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era. They co-existed for some 30 million years along with the reptilian ancestors of modern-day crocodiles. The reptiles with diverse body types were more successful than early dinosaurs and mammals during this time.

At the End Triassic (Tr-J) extinction, the crocodile relatives (reptiles) were almost completely gone and the dinosaurs began their 135 million-year domination on our planet.

After the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction 66 million-years-ago, the non-avian dinosaurs were completely gone and mammals began their domination of our planet.

• • • IMPACT CRATERS:  an approximately circular depression in the surface of a planet, moon, or other solid body in the Solar System or elsewhere, formed by the hypervelocity (>12km/sec) impact of a smaller body.
    • IMPACT EJECTA: a special group of sediments comprising material that is thrown out from an impact crater in the excavation stage and deposited at a distance determined by the size of the impact.
    • IRIDIUM (Ir) CONCENTRATIONS: “Iridium is one of the rarest elements existing in two parts per billion in the Earth’s crust. Iron meteorites contain about 3 parts per million of iridium. Stony meteorites contain about 0.64 parts per million of iridium” (Chemistry Explained).
    • VOLCANIC ACTIVITY: “In geology, a large igneous province (LIP) is an extremely large accumulation of igneous rocks, including plutonic rocks (intrusive) or volcanic rock formations (extrusive), arising when hot magma extrudes from inside the Earth and flows out. The source of many or all LIPs is variously attributed to mantle plumes or to processes associated with plate tectonics (Foulger 2010)”. Traps, the Swedish word for stairs, refers to the stepped appearance of lava flows that oozed from a vast rift in the Earth’s crust for nearly a million years.
    • CLIMATE CHANGE: a change in the statistical properties (principally its mean and spread) of the climate system when considered over long periods of time, regardless of cause.

The K-Pg extinction that ended the non-avian dinosaurs is well explained. But there is a mystery of how the reptiles lost their domination at the Tr-J extinction allowing the dinosaurs to dominate.

My article documents the influence the two separate extinctions had on the physical, chemical and biological alterations on our planet and their common characteristics.

• • • IMPACT CRATER:

“The K–Pg extinction event, a sudden mass extinction of some three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth, was caused by a large bolide impact. In 1990 Hildebrand et al. showed that the source crater for the K-Pg extinction is probably the 180-km-diameter Chicxulub crater which lies on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Non-avian dinosaurs did not survive this event” (Hildebrand 1993).

•  IMPACT EJECTA:

“The K-Pg boundary clay is known to consist of two layers:
– a globally-distributed, uniform ~3-mm-thick layer which was probably dispersed by the impact fireball and
– a layer found only near the source crater composed of ballistically-distributed ejecta.
Chondritic siderophile trace -element anomalies, shocked minerals and tektites have been subsequently found in the K-Pg boundary layers” (Hildebrand 1993).

• IRIDIUM (Ir) CONCENTRATIONS:

“The mass of the Chicxulub asteroid is calculated to be about 300 billion metric tons with an asteroid diameter 10 ± 4 kilometers (km), determined from the iridium measurements in the K-Pg boundary (about 100 times natural concentrations), the concentration of iridium in so-called chondritic meteorites and the surface area of the Earth, ” (Alverez 1997).

• VOLCANIC ACTIVITY:

The Deccan Traps began forming 66.25 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period. This series of eruptions may have lasted less than 30,000 years in total.

The lava flows covered 1.5 million km² of  western India with multiple layers of solidified flood basalt more than 2,000 m thick. The Deccan Traps region was reduced to its current size by erosion and plate tectonics; the present area of directly observable lava flows is around 500,000 km².

The Chicxulub asteroid impact and the eruption of the massive Deccan volcanic province are two proposed causes of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, which includes the demise of nonavian dinosaurs.

“U-Pb zircon geochronology of Deccan rocks show that the main phase of eruptions initiated ~250,000 years before  and continued for 500,000 years after the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.  More than 1.1 million km³ of basalt erupted in those ~750,000 years. The Deccan Traps contributed to the latest Cretaceous environmental change and biologic turnover that culminated in the marine and terrestrial mass extinctions.” (Schoene 2015)

“There is evidence for the triggering of magmatism on a global scale by the Chicxulub meteorite impact at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, recorded by transiently increased crustal production at mid-ocean ridges. Concentrated positive free-air gravity and coincident seafloor topographic anomalies, associated with seafloor created at fast-spreading rates, suggest volumes of excess magmatism in the range of ~10⁵ to 10⁶ km³. Widespread mobilization of existing mantle melt by post-impact seismic radiation can explain the volume and distribution of the anomalous crust. This massive but short-lived pulse of marine magmatism should be considered alongside the Chicxulub impact and Deccan Traps as a contributor to geochemical anomalies and environmental changes at K-Pg time.” (Byrnes 2018)

• CLIMATE CHANGE:

“The Chicxulub impact produced a massive pulse of shock-devolatized CO₂ and SO₂ because the target rocks included a thick sequence of carbonates and sulphates and was therefore particularly lethal for an impact of its size. The addition of these gases to the atmosphere led to a global sulphurous acid rain and a long-term CO₂ greenhouse warming of ~10° Celsius. The Chicxulub impact was orders of magnitude more deadly to the environment than any known terrestrial process such as volcanism. Extinction-causing impacts of this size reoccur approximately once every 100 million years thereby altering the long-term evolution of life on earth” (Hildebrand 1993).

TRIASSIC-JURASSIC (Tr-J) –  237-201.3 million-years-ago:

• IMPACT CRATERS: 

Dated within the 237-201.3 million-year time frame of the End Triassic, many large bolide impacts have been identified at present-day northern latitudes. They range from 9 to >100 km in diameter.

The presence of impact structures with Late Triassic ages suggests the possibility of bolide impact-induced environmental degradation prior to the end-Triassic.

“The attempts to establish a globally significant causal extinction connection between the larger impacts (e.g. Manicouagan and Rochechouart) and Late Triassic marine and terrestrial bioevents (culminating with the End Triassic Extinction), have proved unsuccessful” (Clutson et al 2018).

•  IMPACT EJECTA: 

214 Ma – LATE TRIASSIC EJECTA – SW BRITAIN
“The documented late Triassic spherule layer of SW England deposit contains an abundance of spherules, common shocked quartz and a suite of accessory minerals believed to have been derived direct from the impact site. These include garnets, ilmenites, zircons and biotites. Garnets and ilmenites are highly fractured, and biotites show prominent kink bands indicative of shock” (Thackrey 2009) .

• IRIDIUM (Ir) CONCENTRATIONS:

“New analyses confirms Ir enrichment (up to 0.31 ng/g) in close proximity to the palynological Triassic–Jurassic boundary in strata near the top of the Blomidon Formation at Partridge Island, Nova Scotia. High Ir concentrations have been found in at least two samples within the uppermost 70 cm of the formation. There is enrichment of some  platinum group elements (including Ir) and transition group elements in strata that occur at, and in close stratigraphic proximity to, the horizon of palynological turnover that is interpreted as the Triassic–Jurassic boundary in the Fundy basin” (Tanner 2005).

• • • VOLCANIC ACTIVITY:

Two volcanic episodes in the Triassic are significant to dinosaur evolution:

1. “The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) is the Earth’s largest continental large igneous province, covering an area of roughly 11 million km². It is composed mainly of basalt that formed prior to the breakup of Pangaea near the end of the Triassic and the beginning of the Jurassic periods.

The Tr-J multi-sized impact events formed prior to commencement of the CAMP volcanic episode by several million years.

Widespread eruptions of flood basalts of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) were synchronous with or slightly postdate the Late Triassic boundary” (Tanner 2004).

“The Bay of Fundy terrestrial redbeds of the Blomidon Formation were deposited during the late Triassic and early Jurrasic. A 10-m-thick zone of intensely deformed strata that occurs near the base of the formation is characterized by faulting. Correlation of this zone basin-wide indicates that it is a record of a very powerful paleoseismic event. The presence in strata just above the deformed zone of quartz grains displaying features of shock metamorphism raises the intriguing possibility that reactivation of the fault zone was triggered by a bolide impact” (Tanner 2002).

2. “Wrangellia flood basalts formed as an oceanic variety of a large igneous province (LIP) in the Middle to Late Triassic, with accretion to western North America occurring in the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous” (Richards et al., 1991).

• • • CLIMATE CHANGE:

“The dinosaurs had a sudden growth in size at the of the end of the Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE) in the Triassic period. This was a time when climates shuttled from dry to humid and back to dry again.

“At the CPE, the massive eruptions in western Canada, represented today by the great Wrangellia basalts, caused bursts of global warming, acid rain, and killing/extinctions on land and in the oceans”  (Bernardi 2018).

It is suspected that the Wrangellia had a telling effect at the CPE and the beginning of the 135 million-year dinosaur domination.

– CONCLUSION

Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) – 66.043 ± 0.011 million years ago – the end of the dinosaur era
“Sixty-five million years ago, a comet or asteroid larger than Mount Everest slammed into the Earth, creating the Chicxulub crater, inducing an explosion equivalent to the detonation of a hundred million hydrogen bombs. Vaporized detritus blasted through the atmosphere upon impact, falling back to Earth around the globe. Disastrous environmental consequences ensued: a giant tsunami, continent-scale wildfires, darkness, and cold, followed by sweltering greenhouse heat. When conditions returned to normal, half the plant and animal genera on Earth had perished” (Alverez 1997). The non-avian dinosaurs were now extinct, making way for mammals to evolve and dominate our planet.

Triassic-Jurassic (Tr-J) –  201.3 million years ago: –the beginning of the dinosaur era
For 30 million years primitive dinosaurs and mammals lived alongside giant, crocodile-like animals known as the crurotarsans in the Triassic Period. The reptilian crurotarsans outnumbered the dinosaurs and were even more diverse. At the Triassic–Jurassic boundary 200 million years ago, the reptilian crurotarsans were virtually gone making way for the dinosaurs to evolve and dominate our planet.

Closing argument:

Dinosaurs originated about 245 Ma, during the recovery from the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. They remained insignificant until they emerged in diversity and ecological importance during the Late Triassic Tr-J event, 201 million years ago. Thus began the 135-million-year dinosaur domination of our planet.

At the K-Pg 66 million years ago, a bolide impact ended the reign of the non-avian dinosaurs.

The geomorphometry of the K-Pg and Tr-J events were compared to illustrate their similarities.

“However, the mode and timing of the origin and diversification of the dinosaurs at the Tr-J have so far been unresolved” (Bernardi 2018).

“There is serious debate on whether the ETE actually exists, or whether it was an event that was attenuated over ~40 Ma (almost 2/3 the time span of the Tertiary!)”(David E. Brown – private correspondence 2018).

– REFERENCES

• PAPERS

Walter Alvarez  T. rex and the Crater of Doom  University of California, Berkeley (1997)

Massimo Bernardi, et al  Dinosaur diversification linked with the Carnian Pluvial Episode Nature Communications volume 9 (2018)

Stephen Brusatte The Unlikely Triumph of Dinosaurs Scientific American (May 2008)

Joseph S. Byrnes and Leif Karlstrom Anomalous K-Pg–aged seafloor attributed to impact-induced mid-ocean ridge magmatism Science Advances  (07 Feb 2018)

Hildebrand and Boynton, Proximal Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary impact deposits in the Caribbean. Science, 248 (1990)

Clutson, M.J., Brown, D.E., and Tanner, L.H., 2018 Distal Processes and Effects of Multiple Late Triassic Terrestrial Bolide Impacts: Insights from the Norian Manicouagan Event, Northeastern Quebec, Canada In: L.H. Tanner (ed), The Late Triassic World: Earth in a Time of Transition. Topics in Geobiology Vol. 46, Springer, Cham. ISBN: 978-3-319-68008-8 / 978-3-319-68009-5. DOI

Foulger, G.R.  Plates vs. Plumes: A Geological Controversy. Wiley-Blackwell. (2010)

Alan R. Hildebrand, The Cretaceous / Tertiary Boundary Impact – the Dinosaurs Didn’t have a Chance Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, (APR, 1993)

Susannah F. Locke Was the Dinosaurs’ Long Reign on Earth a Fluke? Scientific American (Sept 2008)

Charlotte S. Miller, Francien Peterse, Anne-Christine da Silva, Viktória Baranyi,
Gert J. Reichart & Wolfram M. Kürschner Astronomical age constraints and
extinction mechanisms of the Late Triassic Carnian crisis SCIENTIFIC REPORTS (2017)

Lucas S.G., Tanner L.H., The Missing Mass Extinction at the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary Program & Abstracts, Northeastern Section of the Geological Society of America 53rd Annual Meeting, Burlington, VT, March 18-20, 2018, Abstract No.310396 (poster).

Tetsuji Onoue, Honami Sato, Daisuke Yamashita, Minoru Ikehara, Kazutaka Yasukawa, Koichiro Fujinaga, Yasuhiro Kato & Atsushi Matsuoka Bolide impact triggered the Late Triassic extinction event in equatorial Panthalassa  SCIENTIFIC REPORTS (2016)

Richards, M. A., Jones, D. L., Duncan, R. A. & DePaolo, D. J. . A mantle plume initiation model for the Wrangellia flood basalt and other oceanic plateaus. Science254, 263-267.(1991)

Blair Schoene, Kyle M. Samperton, Michael P. Eddy, Gerta Keller, Thierry Adatte, Samuel A. Bowring  U-Pb geochronology of the Deccan Traps and relation to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction Science (2015)

Tanner L.H.,Clutson, M.J., Brown, D.E.,   DISTAL EVIDENCE (?) OF THE LATE TRIASSIC (NORIAN) MANICOUAGAN IMPACT, NORTHEASTERN QUEBEC: NEW DATA FROM THE FUNDY GROUP (CANADIAN MARITIMES) Program & Abstracts, Northeastern Section of the Geological Society of America 53rd Annual Meeting, Burlington, VT, March 18-20, 2018, Abstract No.310396 (poster).

L.H. Tanner, SYNSEDIMENTARY SEISMIC DEFORMATION IN THE BLOMIDON FORMATION (NORIAN-HETTANGIAN), FUNDY BASIN, CANADA Department of Biological Sciences,  Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY (2006)

Lawrence H. Tanner, Frank T. Kyte Anomalous iridium enrichment at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary, Blomidon Formation, Fundy basin, Canada  Department of Biological Sciences,  Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY (2005)

L.H. Tanner, S.G. Lucasb, M.G. Chapmanc Assessing the record and causes of Late Triassic extinctions Earth-Science Reviews 65 (2004)

Lawrence H. Tanner, STRATIGRAPHIC RECORD IN THE FUNDY RIFT BASIN OF THE MANICOUAGAN IMPACT: BOLIDE WITH A BANG OR A WHIMPER?  Geography and Geosciences, Bloomsburg Univ (2002)

Tanner, L. H.,  Far-reaching seismic effects of the Manicouagan impact: evidence from the Fundy basin. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, 35 (6), 167. 2003.

L.H. Tanner, Formal definition of the Lower Jurassic McCoy Brook Formation, Fundy Rift Basin, eastern Canada Department of Geography and Earth Science, Bloomsburg University, (1996)

Scott Neil Thackrey, Gordon Mark Walkden, A. Indares, A. Horstwood, S. Kelley, R. Parrish The use of heavy mineral correlation for determining the source of impact ejecta: A Manicouagan distal ejecta case study Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2009.06.010)

Harry Thurston (Author),‎ Stephen Homer (Illustrator) Tidal Life: A Natural History of the Bay of Fundy (1998)