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 DTdid 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.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 866-870 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Science |
Volume | 363 |
Issue number | 6429 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2019 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General