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Measurements and Environmental Impacts

The time period between these two major extinctions caused major effects to occur in terms of global change. There is evidence for many changes that occurred, including cooling of the ocean and air temperatures, the increase in the amount of ice freezing, and the fall in sea-level. One major result of these impacts was the accelerated extinction that occurred for many important species including the foraminifera family Hantkeninidea. Because of the turnover in oceanic plankton, this family, as well as larger foraminifera were also affected. This resulted in the loss of many organism that were found in shallow water, specifically a decrease in carbon-secreting organisms.

The exact time periods of many extinctions are difficult to pinpoint exactly because of the lack of precision in our current measurement technology, as well as ambiguity and debate regarding what determines the end of a period, and the start of another. This contributes to the reason as to why an Eocene-Oligocene time period exists, a transition period between two large time periods. The Eocene Oligocene boundary is defined using the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), at a point which corresponds to the extinction of the Hantkeninidea, emphasizing its importance in this extinction.

Because of the partial and lack of preservation of carbonate and unreliable stable isotope stratigraphy, used to measure the indicators of the evidence of this extinction, there is much ambiguity and uncertainty about how the official boundary relates to climate and environmental changes exactly.

The Deep Sea Drilling Project, demonstrates that the extinction of the Hantkeninidea has very many positively correlated values in terms of oxygen isotopes, which relates to the glacial maximum in the early Oligocene.

Problems of correlation have made it difficult to relate these events to each other, as well as to confidently correlate the global climate transition, due to the incompleteness and lack of precision in the evidence. The microfossils that serve as proof for the Hantkeninidea extinction are rare, and when they are found, they are fragmented, so they do not serve as the best kind of evidence for correlation to the glacial maximum in the Oligocene. Due to these difficulties and incompleteness in the evidence, there has been much debate about moving the Eocene-Oligocene boundary to a stratigraphic level which can be more easily correlated to the global climate changes that it was said to cause, based on the isotopic data. Some of the other species that have gone extinct in this period include the Disocyclinidae, Asterocuclinididae, and some Nummulitidae. The decline and eventual disappearances of these species had influenced the global climate carbon cycle greatly, because of the sharp decline in the shallow-water carbonate producers. The lack of carbon in the water changed the regular levels in the carbon cycle and caused changes in the regular carbon levels, which influenced the climate overall. It is unclear how rapidly the extinction occurred however, and how exactly it linked to the transitions in climate change globally.

There is now new paleontological and geochemical data to help define a more exact mark of the time period of the Eocene Oligocene extinction. The data was found from hemipelagic sediment cores in the Indian Ocean. The Eocene-Oligocene boundary is marked between two principal steps in the stable isotope records from them.

Accompanying the disappearance of many other groups, there was an extreme decrease in the diversity in the Turborotalia cerrozaulensis group. Calcareous nannoplankton also delivered evidence of disruptions of the ecosystems throughout the boundary as well. Much less diversity is apparent in the Discoaster saipanenis and Pemma papillatum. All of the impacts on various groups is due to the decrease of warm- water taxa, which became completely extinct later on in the Oligocene. The final result of all of these extinctions on the earth caused a reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a reduction in the global temperature, an increase in ocean alkalinity, which all characterize the Eocene Oligocene Extinction.