Major Marine Seaway Across India During the K-T Transition: Evidence From Deccan Traps

Details Major Marine Seaway Across India During the K-T Transition: Evidence From Deccan Traps Major Marine Seaway Across India During the K-T Transition: Evidence From Deccan Traps

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.v24a..08s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #V24A-08

Mathematics

Logic

3030 Micropaleontology (0459, 4944), 9606 Paleogene, 9610 Cretaceous

Scientific paper

Intertrappean beds in the main part of the Deccan Traps volcanic province of peninsular India are generally considered to be terrestrial deposits of late Maastrichtian age, lthough the precise position of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary event has remained speculative. Recent investigations of the outlying Deccan Traps exposures around Rajahmundry near the southeastern coast, however, revealed the K-T event in intertrappean beds overlying the end of the main Deccan volcanic phase with the last phase of volcanic eruptions at the C29R/C29N transition (Keller et al., 2008). Further investigations in central India confirm these results and indicate that a major marine seaway existed across India during the K-T transition. The new evidence is from Deccan Traps at Jhilmili, Chhindwara District of central India, located about 800 km from the nearest ocean. Intertrappean sediments in this area have been considered as terrestrial deposition. Our multi-disciplinary investigations, including biostratigraphic, sedimentologic, mineralogic, chemo- and magnetostratigraphic analyses of the Deccan Traps and intertrappean sediments revealed: i) predominantly terrestrial to fresh water (lacustrine, palustrine) deposition with short marine incursions transporting planktic foraminifera and forming brackish-marine environments; ii) planktic foraminiferal assemblages that indicate an early Danian zone P1a age for these marine incursions; iii) the K-T boundary is above the last reversely magnetized (C29R) basalt flow, and iv) the upper basalt flow occurs near the C29R/C29N transition. These biostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic ages corroborate the previous results from Rajahmundry and place the K-T boundary at the end of the main phase of Deccan Traps volcanism. Deposition at Jhilmili during the K/T transition thus occurred in predominantly terrestrial semi-humid to arid environmental settings with short aquatic intervals of fresh water ponds and lakes, followed by shallow coastal marine conditions with brackish marine ostracods and early Danian planktic foraminifera. The planktic foraminifera point to the existence of a major seaway that extended at least 800 km across India. Keller, G., Adatte, T., Gardin, S., Bartolini, A., Bajpai, S., 2008. Main Deccan volcanism phase ends near the K-T boundary: Evidence from the Krishna-Godavari Basin, SE India. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 268, 293-311. Keywords: Deccan volcanism, K-T boundary, peninsular India, seaway

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