Investigating the Environmental and Biological Response to Deccan Volcanism

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Investigating the Environmental and Biological Response to Deccan Volcanism Principle Investigator: Prof. Gerta Keller, Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544, email: gkeller@princeton.eduAbstractDeccan volcanic eruptions occurred in three phases with the main phase-2 in chron 29R at the end of the Maastrichtian accounting for 80% of the entire 3500 m thick Deccan lava pile. Four of Earth's longest lava flows span over 1000 km across India and out into the Bay of Bengal ending with the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) mass extinction (Keller et al., 2008, 2009a,b). Still unknown in KT studies is the potential cause-and-effect relationship of Deccan volcanism and the mass extinction. This project addresses this problem. The main objective is to investigate the biological and environmental consequences of these longest lava flows and their effects upon marine life. This has been problematic because Deccan eruptions are largely continental. We have discovered marine sequences in eastern, central and southwestern India. For this project we plan to investigate outcrops as well as drill two 50 m deep wells in two quarries of Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, to recover the last 1 m.y. record of the Maastrichtian. In addition, we plan fieldwork in Gujarat to collect upper Maastrichtian sediments deposited in an estuarine environment. These records will be analyzed in a multidisciplinary international collaboration project that includes US, Indian and Swiss scientists and students who will be collaborating in all phases of this research, from fieldwork to analyses, interpretation and writing papers for publication. Specific topics to be investigated include the biological and environmental effects of volcanism upon benthic and planktic foraminifera, calcareous nannofossils, ostracods and palynomorphs, as well as changes in climate, productivity and oxygen based on stable isotopes, sedimentology, microfacies, bulk and clay mineralogy. The database collected under this project will be the first direct evaluation of the effects of a large igneous province (LIP) upon life and the methods are potentially applicable to other mass extinctions associated with LIPs. This project is supported with cofunding from the Office of International Science and Engineering's India Program.