The PETM-CIE and shallow-water biotic changes in the eastern Neotethys Ocean (Tibet/China and Ladakh/India)

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The project is mainly addressed to the mechanisms triggering the Carbon Isotope Excursion (CIE) and associated shallow water biotic changes at the Paleocene - Eocene boundary. Our former studies have shown that the CIE event was well preserved in Tibet and Ladakh, and it coincided with the initial India-Asia Continental Collision (IIACC) and the Larger Foraminiferal Extinction and Origination event (LFEO). To investigate the CIE in the eastern tropical Neotethys Ocean and decipher the possible linkage among the CIE, the IIACC, and the LFEO, four shallow marine areas on the northern Indian passive continental margin (Guru-Gamba-Tingri-Ladakh) and one from the southern Asian active continental margin (Tso Jiangding) will be studied. Geochemical and isotopic analyses (Carbon and Oxygen isotopes, TOC, CaCO3 content, trace elements, biomarker, clay mineral composition) and studies of palaeontology, biostratigraphy, sedimentology and microfacies will be integrated to reveal the causes of paleoenvironmental and biotic changes in the course of the India-Asia plate convergence and their final collision. The project will evaluate effects of the IIACC and the progressively narrowing of the eastern Neotethys Ocean on palaeoenvironmental and biotic changes as well as regional ocean current systems close to the equatorial realm. In the light of a number of remarkably high-resolution PETM sections, the project may promote our understanding of the interactions of geo- and biosphere as well as ocean-atmosphere system during the late Paleocene-early Eocene.