The Kellwasser event and most other Later Devonian pulses primarily impacted the marine community, and had a greater effect on shallow warm-water organisms than on cool-water organisms.
The late Devonian crash in biodiversity was more drastic than the familiar extinction event that closed the Cretaceous: a recent survey (McGhee 1996) estimates that 22% of all the 'families' of marine animals (largely invertebrates) were eliminated.