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Gondwana to Asia: Plate tectonics,paleogeography and the biological connectivity of the Indian sub-continent from the Middle Jurassic through latest Eocene (166–35 Ma)
Institution:1. State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;2. School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK;3. State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China;4. Geological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119017, Russia;5. Borissiak Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 117647, Russia;6. Key Laboratory of Continental Collision and Plateau Uplift, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;7. Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow 226007, India;1. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China;2. School of the Earth and Land Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China;3. Institute of Geomechanics, Chinese Academy of Geological Science, Beijing 100081, China;4. School of Ocean Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China;1. Key Laboratory of Continental Collision and Plateau Uplift, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Beijing 100101, China;2. Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA;3. State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China;4. Myanmar Geosciences Society, Yangon, Myanmar;5. Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Abstract:Using the most up-to-the-date information available, we present a considerably revised plate tectonic and paleogeographic model for the Indian Ocean bordering continents, from Gondwana's Middle Jurassic break-up through to India's collision with Asia in the middle Cenozoic. The landmass framework is then used to explore the sometimes complex and occasionally counter-intuitive patterns that have been observed in the fossil and extant biological records of India, Madagascar, Africa and eastern Eurasia, as well those of the more distal continents.Although the paleogeographic model confirms the traditional view that India became progressively more isolated from the major landmasses during the Cretaceous and Paleocene, it is likely that at various times minor physiographic features (principally ocean islands) provided causeways and/or stepping-stone trails along which land animals could have migrated to/from the sub-continent. Aside from a likely link (albeit broken by several marine gaps) to Africa for much of this time (it is notable, that the present-day/recent biota of Madagascar indicates that the ancestors of five land-mammal orders, plus bats, crossed the > 400-km-wide Mozambique Channel at different times in the Cenozoic), it is possible that the Kerguelen Plateau connected India and Australia–Antarctica in the mid-Cretaceous (approximately 115–90 Ma). Later, the Seychelles–Mascarene Plateau and nearby elevated sea-floor areas could have allowed faunas to pass between southern India and Madagascar in the Late Cretaceous, from around 85–65 Ma, with an early Cenozoic extension to this path forming as a result of the Reunion hot-spot trace islands growing on the ocean floor to the SSW of India. The modelling also suggests that India's northward passage towards Asia, with eventual collision at 35 Ma, involved the NE corner of the sub-continent making a glancing contact with Sumatra, followed by Burma from ~ 57 Ma (late Paleocene) onwards, a scenario which is compatible with the fossil record indicating that India–Asia faunal exchanges began occurring at about this time. Finally, we contend that a number of biologically-based direct terrestrial migration routes that have been proposed for last 15 m.y. of the Cretaceous (Asia to India; Antarctica to Madagascar and/or India) can probably be dismissed because the marine barriers, likely varying from > 1000 up to 2500 km, were simply too wide.
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