ELT: Collaborative Research: Stratigraphic refinement, systematic and biogeographic relationships of the late Cretaceous-Paleocene Deccan biota of India

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

This is a project to conduct detailed studies of anatomically preserved fossil plants from deposits in India that were growing at a time when the Indian subcontinent was about to collide with southern Asia. The focus of the research is on the floristic changes that occurred as a result of that continental collision, and the global biological catastrophe that it is hypothesized to have caused. The Intertrappean beds developed during intervals between major plateau basalt eruptions of the late Cretaceous-early Paleocene are famous for their fossil content, including remains of terrestrial mammals, dinosaurs, mammals, molluscs and abundant fossil plants. Fossils that are the focus of this study are among the most extensive and well preserved in the paleontological record. Detailed knowledge of the fossil plants preserved in those beds, and the floristic turnover from the Late Cretaceous through the basal Paleogene will provide a benchmark for understanding the relationship between climatic and floristic change. Because this study will focus on climate-change driven changes in regional and global floristics, it has great potential to provide insights about vegetational changes that are likely to result from the global climate change that is beginning at this time. Obviously, these insights will help predict the types of global vegetational changes that we may expect to see in the near future, and help inform decisions about how to manage such changes through the selective allocation of resources. The disciplines that are represented by the PI team, and the approach that has been proposed is comprehensive and potentially transformative with respect to the vital insights that will result from characterization of floristic changes through this crucial period in the history of the earth. The combined use of broad-based plant systematics, coupled with detailed studies of flowers, fruits, and wood to address these important questions is a most ambitions and creative approach that has not previously been attempted.