Recent discoveries of shocked feldspar and quartz near the Triassic-Jurassic systemic boundary in Tuscany seem to provide the stratigraphic record of the latest Triassic Manicouagan impact, which created one of the five largest impact craters on Earth. This Manicouagan impact is of the magnitude necessary to generate the large-scale global darkening, thermal variations, and other environmental changes as proposed for another mass extinction at the K-T boundary. A quantitative paleoecological study of marine bivalves and associated invertebrates across the T-J systemic boundary sections in Tuscany will document the marine diversity record relative to the Manicouagan event. The paleobiological data will be collected in conjunction with sampling for shock-metamorphosed minerals and geochemical anomalies. The objective of this exploratory study is to calibrate the marine diversity record in the Tuscan sections with the new evidence for the stratigraphic location of the Manicouagan event.
