The eruptive tempo of Deccan volcanism in relation to the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary
Two timelines for extinction
The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction that wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs 66 million years ago was correlated with two extreme events: The Chicxulub impact occurred at roughly the same time that massive amounts of lava were erupting from the Deccan Traps (see the Perspective by Burgess). Sprain et al. used argon-argon dating of the volcanic ash from the Deccan Traps to argue that a steady eruption of the flood basalts mostly occurred after the Chicxulub impact. Schoene et al. used uranium-lead dating of zircons from ash beds and concluded that four large magmatic pulses occurred during the flood basalt eruption, the first of which preceded the Chicxulub impact. Whatever the correct ordering of events, better constraints on the timing and rates of the eruption will help elucidate how volcanic gas influenced climate.
Abstract
Late Cretaceous records of environmental change suggest that Deccan Traps (DT) volcanism contributed to the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (KPB) ecosystem crisis. However, testing this hypothesis requires identification of the KPB in the DT. We constrain the location of the KPB with high-precision argon-40/argon-39 data to be coincident with changes in the magmatic plumbing system. We also found that the DT did not erupt in three discrete large pulses and that >90% of DT volume erupted in <1 million years, with ~75% emplaced post-KPB. Late Cretaceous records of climate change coincide temporally with the eruption of the smallest DT phases, suggesting that either the release of climate-modifying gases is not directly related to eruptive volume or DT volcanism was not the source of Late Cretaceous climate change.
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Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Supplementary Text
Fig. S1
Tables S1 and S2
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References and Notes
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Received: 23 August 2018
Accepted: 8 January 2019
Acknowledgments
We thank T. Becker and A. Jaouni for laboratory assistance; H. Sheth, R. Duraiswami, V. Kale, I. Fendley, and M. Richards for field assistance; and W. Alvarez, M. Manga, B. Black, and M. Richards for discussion. Funding: This work was funded by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation; the Esper S. Larsen Fund of the University of California, Berkeley; the Heising-Simons Foundation; NSF grants EAR-1615021, EAR-1615203, and EAR-1615003; and the Berkeley Geochronology Center. C.J.S. was supported by an NSF graduate research fellowship. Author contributions: C.J.S. collected samples, processed and analyzed samples, interpreted results, and wrote and edited the manuscript; P.R.R. collected samples, processed and analyzed samples, and participated in interpretation and the writing and editing of the manuscript; L.V., S.S., K.P., and T.M. collected samples and participated in interpretation and the writing and editing of the manuscript. Competing interests: None declared. Data and materials availability: All data are available in the supplementary materials.
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National Science Foundation: EAR-1615003
National Science Foundation: EAR-1615021
National Science Foundation: EAR-1615203
Heising-Simons Foundation:
Larsen Funds, Univ. of California-Berkeley:
