Earliest eruption of the Deccan Large Igneous Province: a potential trigger of the Late Maastrichtian abrupt warming event

The Chicxulub impact in Mexico and Deccan volcanism in India are both linked to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction but the relative timing of the impact, volcanic eruptions, and environmental changes remain controversial, precluding a full assessment of their respective roles. The bulk (80%) of Deccan Trap eruptions occurred over a relatively short time interval in magnetic polarity C29r. U-Pb zircon geochronology reveals the onset of this main eruption phase 350 ky before the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) mass extinction.

U-Pb zircon geochronology from Malwa Plateau basalts on the northern margin of the Deccan LIP are temporally correlative with the first pulse of Deccan volcanism, which is coeval with a ∼200 kyr Late Maastrichtian warming event preserved globally in contemporaneous stratigraphic sections. This 2.5–8°C warming has been inferred by several studies on the basis of δ¹⁸O in benthic foraminifera, pedogenic carbonate and bivalve shells, as well as changes in leaf morphology. The onset of this excursion is temporally correlative to the initial decline in oceanic ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os toward more radiogenic values and increasing Hg contents.

This first pulse of Deccan magmatism erupted through organic-rich sedimentary Permian rocks of the Narmada-Tapi rift basin. Direct CO₂ emissions from basalt are unlikely to cause this magnitude of warming, except at extreme eruption rates, which is difficult to reconcile with the likely longer duration and lower eruption rates inferred from this first eruptive pulse. Thermal contact metamorphism of these sediments could have been a source of sufficient CO₂ to drive the Late Maastrichtian warming event. The aim of this study is to understand the fate of C, Hg and S during the contact metamorphism associated with the first Deccan pulse and to evaluate the importance of this process in the global C, Hg and S cycles.

Our data are based on measurements of contact aureoles around several dikes and sills intruding in Permian organic-rich coal located in the Narmada-Tapi rift basin. We focused on TOC, Hg and S contents. While the sediments further away from the intrusions show high levels of TOC (>20%) and significant contents in Hg and S, the samples located in the aureoles (around 5 m thick) show a nearly total loss of the same elements. Our initial results demonstrate that the global C, S and Hg cycles can be substantially perturbed after LIP-scale sill and dyke emplacement in organic-rich sedimentary rocks. Deccan volcanism likely contributed to climate instability in the late Cretaceous and may have exacerbated the environmental effects of the Chicxulub impact.