On the deep-mantle origin of the Deccan Traps.
The Deccan Traps in west-central India constitute one of Earth's largest continental flood basalt provinces, whose eruption played a role in the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. The unknown mantle structure under the Indian Ocean at the start of the Cenozoic presents a challenge for connecting the event to a deep mantle origin. We used a back-and-forth iterative method for time-reversed convection modeling, which incorporates tomography-based, present-day mantle heterogeneity to reconstruct mantle structure at the start of the Cenozoic. We show a very low-density, deep-seated upwelling that ascends beneath the Réunion hot spot at the time of the Deccan eruptions. We found a second active upwelling below the Comores hot spot that likely contributed to the region of partial melt feeding the massive eruption.
GEOTOP, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec H3C 3P8, Canada. glisovic.petar@uqam.ca.
Petar
0000-0001-5636-7731
P
Glišović
GEOTOP, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec H3C 3P8, Canada.|Department of Geological Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32603, USA.
Alessandro M
AM
Forte